Concours d’Elegance, Pebble Beach: Featured marques announced

PEBBLE BEACH – Though eight months away, plans for the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance are already coming together – including the featured marques bound to headline next year’s field of car collector prowess.

The Aug. 20 finale for Monterey Classic Car Week 2023 will champion nine featured classes: creations by designer Joseph Figoni, Mercedes-Benz S Series, Pegaso, Vanderbilt Cup era race cars, Porsche, McLaren, Lamborghini, postwar luxury cars and American dream cars of the 1950s.

For more than seven decades, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance has commemorated key moments in auto history with collections and showings of some of the most significant cars from around the world.

Topping the list of marques is the 100th anniversary of famed coachbuilder Joseph Figoni, who started his enterprise in 1923. Intending to produce sporting and lightweight bodies in his own unique style, Figoni quickly established himself as a well-known Parisian coachbuilder through the 1920s. He then joined forces with Italian businessman Ovidio Falaschi in 1935 to create Figoni et Falaschi – a French luxury brand active through the late-1950s that gave birth to cars still revered for their beauty and elegance to date.

Creations from Figoni are often an annual highlight of the field at Pebble. Last year Best of Show went to the 1932 Duesenberg J Figoni Sports Torpedo of Lee R. Anderson Sr.

Another notable anniversary set for Pebble’s score of celebrations next year is the 75th anniversary of Porsche. Dating back to 1946, the German manufacturer emerged out of a partnership between engineering maverick Ferdinand Porsche and his son Ferry Porsche. Together, the pair began to build their own cars, an operation that has, over the decades, attracted a loyal, large and still rapidly following of enthusiasts.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Porsche, the Pebble Beach Concours will offer a carefully curated display of unique and historically significant Porsches from 1948 to 1973, including the most important, iconic and successful of Porsche’s sports and competition cars from prototypes to race winners.

Also coming up in 2023 is the 60th anniversary of Lamborghini, which Pebble plans to honor with a cross-section of  Lamborghini classics, as well as former show cars and special production vehicles.

Rounding out anniversaries, 60 years of McLaren will likewise form a class at next year’s celebration, marking the first time McLaren has received its own tribute at the Pebble Beach Concours. The celebration will be a testament to McLaren’s success in sports car racing, with a display covering anything from early sports cars to more recent Formula 1 champions in their iconic liveries, as well as several significant road cars.

Classes devoted to the Mercedes Benz S Series and Pegaso will offer a similar nod to sports cars, while early eras of speed and design will capture a segment of the 2023 show field in a marque built around the 1904-1910 Vanderbilt Cup Races.

The Concours will polish off selections with two more displays distinct in theme as much as their hopeful entrants.

Often focusing postwar classes on sports and racing cars, next year’s Concours is setting aside space for coachbuilders who continued to build luxury cars in the decades following World War II.

And for its final marque, the Concours will be turning attention to one-off, limited-production cars of the 1950s, curated to celebrate examples of individuality and personality in mid-20th century auto design.

With marques lined up for next August, organizers are now seeking cars that will fill out the Concours field. In some cases, selections have been in the works for years.

“The selection process tries to work ahead by two or three years in choosing classes,” explained Chris Bock, chief judge for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. “With Figoni, for example, we’ve been looking forward to that class for a couple of years now.”

Displays are arranged by a 15-member selection committee. Apart from time-consuming, the search for cars that are the best representation of featured marques is also an international effort, Bock said, adding that some classes have cars scattered all over the world.

Regular Concours participants have been invited to submit an online entry form for next year’s event. Others with a car they believe to be Concours worthy can send a brief description and images to [email protected] or can visit https://pebblebeachconcours.net/participants/entrants/entrant-application-2/entry-application-inquiry/ for more information.

“It’s quite the production to get all the cars together, but I’m confident we’re going to have a beautiful display in all the classes (next) year),” Bock said.