The Bugatti Type 59’s historic victory at Pebble Beach has prompted much discussion. Nathan Chadwick investigates.
‘Pebble Beach has always been about celebrating restorations – what they’ve done is given the award to someone who has done nothing to their car. It is unfair and disrespectful to all those who spent time, money and effort restoring cars for the event.’ Harsh words from one unnamed US restorer, but a measure of the disquiet surrounding Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance result this year – Fritz Burkhard’s Bugatti Type 59 was the first preservation car to win the event.
‘I am aware of some strong sentiments, opinions and doubts of a few hobbyists as to the fairness, or appropriateness of the selection of a preservation car as best of show at Pebble this year. But as a Pebble judge for 21 years and an experienced chief judge I support the event’s decision,’ says Paul Sable.
Jeremy Jackson-Sytner, sees it differently. ‘If I was a chief judge, would that be my car of choice – probably not,’ he says; he believes that one possible reason for its win was the relative strength of the rest of the field. ‘Three years out of the last five, I’ve spotted the winner first thing in the morning. I couldn’t pick it this year, there wasn’t anything spectacular – there wasn’t a winner in the obvious sense.’ He’s a firm believer that Pebble Beach works best as a showcase for restorations. ‘I’m not taking anything away from what the car is, it’s history and recognising a new collector, but Pebble is a concours of elegance – was the Bugatti an elegant car?’
Sable says there is a belief that only the most ‘elegant’ car should win at a concours. ‘Certainly the car’s appearance, as to beauty, design, elegance is important – concours d’elegance is translated as “a competition of elegance” – but there is another phrase that follows elegance as a criteria,’ he says. ‘That word is “presence”. Presence at a concours includes perhaps the car’s history, its ownership, its rarity, its significance, its importance etc. I believe the Bugatti had some elegance for sure, but “presence” certainly added clout.’
The omens for such a result had been circulating for a while. As Pebble preservation class judge Simon Kidston points out, this year’s Villa d’Este (of which he is also a committee member) was won by a preservation-class Alfa Romeo 8C. ‘It’s a trend that’s gaining momentum, but I don’t think it indicates an overnight change in the way concours are judged,’ he says. ‘It reflects a longer-term appreciation of cars that are preserved – not neglected – as an alternative to perfectly restored cars.’ He’s found that over the past 10 years many clients, particularly those moving to the collector car world from other fields such as art, furniture and watches, have a greater appreciation for preservation. ‘Some collectors will only buy preserved cars, rather than restored ones.’
Miles Collier of the Revs Institute, believes that there’s a gradual awakening that if something is old and historic, that it ought to demonstrate its history. ‘That means you’d like to see it with some degree of patina – otherwise you have a cognitive dissonance, where you’re looking at something that’s from 1924, and it looks like it was made last week,’ he says. ‘I think people are recognising that only an unrestored car can tell us the full narrative of its existence.’
Though it is clear that appreciation for preservation cars is growing, Collier believes it will have little long-term effect. ‘It takes a fair amount of experience with old cars to get to the point where you look at something that’s unrestored and you think it is a more eloquent thing of the past than something that’s been all shined up – it’s almost an independent movement,’ he says. ‘What it may stop, which would be good, is when an unrestored car wins the preservation class, and immediately gets packed off for a “boiled sweet” restoration.’
The result has caused strong consternation among high-level US restorers, though none I spoke to wanted to go on record. However, like Collier, Andy Heywood of McGrath Maserati (mcgrathmaserati.co.uk) sees preservation classes as a message to restorers and owners of significant cars. ‘Rather than immediately commit a car to a restoration solely to make it competitive in concours, think carefully about whether in the process of restoration you are losing something of historical importance,’ he says. ‘In the past, it has been easy to criticise the world of prestigious concours events for too much of the former so in that sense this changes the emphasis and I think it is a credit to the Pebble Beach jury that they made this decision.’
‘For most cars, preservation is no longer an option – they have been restored already
Simon Kidston
However, he also believes that aligning preservation with any form of competition and using this as a way of promoting more preservation will not work in the long term. ‘In the same way as the desire to win used to lead to over-restoration in concours events, the desire for more preservation may well lead to what you might call “constructed patina”, which is less transparent and potentially more damaging to historical record,’ he adds. Neither Kidston or Sable sees a long-term threat to the amount of work passing through restoration businesses. ‘For most cars, preservation is no longer an option and hasn’t been for a long time, as many of them have been restored several times – sometimes well, sometimes less well,’ Kidston adds.
Jackson-Sytner believes the result’s greater significance will be to encourage more concours to run preservation classes, and for collectors to enter their cars. However, Kidston also points out that some attitudes to preservation can be very simplistic. ‘You can’t judge preservation by simply pulling a paint meter out of your pocket, and assuming that if a car doesn’t have consistent paint depths it isn’t preserved. Many of these cars were painted by hand, often in a rush to satisfy paying clients or a looming race entry, and not always by one person. You need to look at the car’s overall history and see if it adds up,’ he says. ‘To quote my friend Lorenzo Ramaciotti, the head of the jury at Villa d’Este, “Judging with a paint meter is like asking a bookkeeper to determine beauty by numbers…”’
And as for the future of Pebble Beach itself? ‘It will be old news fast,’ Sable says. For Miles Collier, it’s too early to say whether the Pebble result is a generational change. ‘Despite the fact that a post-war car won best of show six years ago, we haven’t seen much of a change in the US,’ he says – no post-war car has claimed victory since. ‘A lot of it just boils down to the nature of the car in hand, and if it presents really well I think you’re in with a chance.’
Jackson-Sytner believes next year will see a return to a restored car. ‘I’d put money on it,’ he says. ‘I think it does say to people, please, let’s stop – let’s recognise authenticity for what it is. Let’s not restore a car that doesn’t need restoring and say to people, you don’t have to restore that car for it to get a prize at Pebble Beach.’
For Kidston, he believes the philosophies of preservation and restoration can co-exist. ‘Although many collectors will wax lyrical about originality – it’s still the word used most frequently in the classic car world – the reality is that 9/10 collectors, given the choice, will go for the perfect restoration courtesy of the top names,’ he says. ‘It’s much easier to explain to their non-car expert friends than something with faded paint and cracked leather which might provoke a polite smile and the silent question: “Wonder when he’ll fix it up?”’
