4th September 2020
The 2020 CONCOURS OF ELEGANCE will take place from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 September at Hampton Court Palace. The Concours of Elegance began at Windsor Castle in 2012, before moving to St James’s Palace in 2013, Hampton Court Palace in 2014 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh (Her Majesty The Queen’s official residence in Scotland) in 2015 before returning to Windsor Castle in 2016 and Hampton Court Palace in 2017.
The Concours of Elegance will once again bring together a selection of 100 of the rarest cars from around the world – many of which will never have been seen before in the UK. Many of the Concours cars will also take part in a 2 day driving tour in the days running up to the main Concours event. Uniquely, the Concours of Elegance winner isn’t selected by a panel of judges but by the Owners of the cars themselves. Each participant is asked to vote on the other models on display to decide which car is considered to be the ‘Best of Show’.
Concours of Elegance will gather a line-up of the McLaren F1 GTRs that finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th at Le Mans 24 Hours in 1995 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of McLaren’s unique motorsport achievement. The cars will take centrestage in front of the Palace for the entirety of the event. There will also be a selection of vary rare and historic cars from Ferrari and Porsche. Also a unique Bugatti Type 57 with coachwork by Gangloff, and the only Jaguar XK150 by Bertone known to still exist.
15 stunning cars will be on view on Fri/Sat for the auction on the Saturday at 5pm.
The minimum estimate of any car is £300k and several are expected to sell for a couple of million.
Visit their website here for more info and to buy tickets.
We were there 2.30pm to 6pm on the Friday.
Great to back at this stunning historic palace.
The palace was bought by the English monarchy in 1528. This was when Thomas Wolsey gave it to Henry VIII. It stayed a royal palace for the next 220 years. In its lifetime, it saw twelve monarchs on the throne, until George III stopped living in it after the death of his wife. There was a fire at Hampton Court in 1986. It is currently owned by Historic Royal Palaces, which also owns places like the Tower of London. It is open to the public. It has many gardens, and also has a maze.
All the cars are nicely spaced out at the rear, and they all look superb.
They sound fantastic when many are started up for the parade.
As it was VIP/ press day we had complimentary poached salmon, thyme and sage chicken, finger sandwiches, pastries, wines and coffees in the hospitality tent.
Guests here included PRINCE MICHAEL OF KENT and JODIE KIDD.
You can still buy tickets for Saturday and Sunday.
Happy Birthday to Pretenders drummer MARTIN CHAMBERS who is 69 today.
I have seen The Pretenders live around 15 times with the first being at the legendary Nashville Pub in 1979.