Fort Clinch State Park, Amelia Island, FL, Part 1

8, 9, 10 March 2013

This whole five-week trip was built around attending the Concours d’Elegance here on Amelia Island. Great Husband is a car guy and the Concours is the ultimate car show. I am not a car gal, but even I enjoyed the two days we spent here. My eyes may have glazed over as he explained the history of Car X and Car Y and Car Z to me, but I realized he was so excited about what he was seeing that he needed to have somebody to share it all with! Even for a non-car person, the people-watching was fun, and there were car shapes and car colors to evaluate with the eye of an artist. The event is held at the Ritz Carlton and the hundreds of extraordinary cars, which are there only by invitation, are displayed on the golf course. It is a perfect setting.

Two parts of the Concours were especially fun for me. On Saturday we sat outside on a bench to eat our lunch, and listened to the car auction which was piped outdoors. Only those who are registered bidders got to attend the auction in the auction hall, but how fascinating it was to hear how the auctioneer drove the prices up! For example, just when we thought the Aston Martin had peaked at $400,000 and was about to be sold, that auctioneer was able to twist things his way, do some careful delay maneuvers, and inch the price up to something like $440K.

To one bidder who kept increasing his bids by $5000 increments on his desired cars, and who apparently was not winning in the end, the auctioneer tried to get the bidder to move higher faster by saying, “Five isn’t working for you, sir!” It seemed an insulting thing to say, but with his wonderful British accent, anything the auctioneer said turned magical.

My other favorite activity was watching several hours of awards ceremony from the viewing stands. There were 100 judges and many car categories. Each winner drove into the open-air arena and the announcer described its special features and interviewed the driver most charmingly. One little vehicle had been buried for 50 years before being dug up and restored. Many of the cars had this kind of history, in which they could easily have been lost or destroyed, but the right person came along at the right time and poured heart and treasure into rescue and restoration. Two of the award winners (at least) had been brought over for the Concours clear from Europe. And one winning car was brought by a woman who is 101 years old!

1902 Delahaye

Ferrari 512

GT40
This car won Le Mans twice--1968 and 1969