Advance tickets sold: 5,000. Cars entered for display? More than 1,000.
Last year's Concorso event was held at the Marina Airport: a dusty, perpetually windy venue that left many attendees literally gritting their teeth and vowing "never again." Concorso's new owner Tom McDowell of Mercer Island, Wash., would have none of that.
This year, Lancias with custom coachwork, Alfa Romeos, scores of Ferraris, Lambos, Maseratis and other marques spread in gleaming rows across the the rolling, verdant lawns of Laguna Seca Golf Ranch.
McDowell, a long-time fan of fine classic cars, says the first thing he did after buying Concorso six months ago was return it to a celebration of Italian style.
"This is an event that had lost its soul, and I really wanted to restore that soul," he said. Back came the focus on classic Italian high performance cars - more Daytonas, Testarossas, Muiras and the great sports and racing cars of the '60s and '70s - yet organizers still made sure to create a welcoming environment for enthusiasts who wanted to exhibit later cars. After all, any Ferrari is special.
In a down economy, McDowell says he worked hard to make people who attended Friday's Concorso Italiano feel they made a wise investment of time and expense.
Scott Grundfor of Arroyo Seco said he felt justified displaying his 1955 Ghia Streamliner X, known to collectors as "Gilda."
"I think they [the Concorso staff] are trying hard to bring it back to what it was," said Grundor, who has attended many of the 23 previous Concorso Italianos held in different locales on the Monterey Peninsula. "So far, so good."
One group of fans needed no extra persuading: a herd of dedicated Cub Scouts from Pack 60 in Spreckels. The cadre of volunteers were enlisted to work Concorso by their Scoutmaster, Pete Vasquez, who displayed a Fiat Dino coupe at the event.
-->(2 of 2)"We did all the parking control for the non-Italian entries this morning, and now the kids get to check out the merchandise," said Vasquez, who likes to use his Dino, considered special because it shares the same V-6 engine as the Ferrari Dino 246, to take family members and special friends for vigorous drives on winding Monterey County roads.
Besides the cars, the Concorso featured plenty of eye candy: beautiful people, fashion models undulating their way along a checkerboard runway to upbeat, perky music, and a host of vendor booths offering unique wares for discriminating shoppers: ownership shares in high performance business jets, fine gold jewelry cast over genuine elephant hair, even fine Italian handcrafted purses for only slightly less than the price of a common commuter car.
The perfect setting for car connoisseurs such as Grundfor and Wayne Bier of Morada, a Ferrarista who drove one of his two Italian thoroughbreds to the show and dressed appropriately for the day. Bier accessorized his "rossa red" 2001 Ferrari 355 spyder with a vibrant one-off "rossa red" linen designer jacket with custom black onyx Ferrari logo buttons, Prada sunglasses (no fake shades here) and "rossa red" leather Ferrari-logo'd Puma driving shoes that were a special purchase made in Rome, Italy.
That's Amore.
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