I have said it before, I will say it again: this is my favourite weekend on the calendar, where an entire town gets taken over for the most impression celebration of everything car related in the country. These are just a small handful of the cars that stood out to me from Sunday's main event.

Lotus Omega #0002

Regular readers may recognize this car; I drove it (most of the way…) from Victoria BC to its new home in Toronto ON last year. It was a treat to get re-acquainted with on a much shorter trip from Toronto to Owen Sound, 2-3 hours north of Toronto, nestled on the shore of Georgian Bay. Time has not diminished my fondness for it as is so often the case; it is still by all accounts an incredible car with a fascinating history.

Heavily abridged story: of just 950 Lotus Omegas/Carltons built, this car is the second one, and one of the three set aside for media and press coverage in mainland Europe. It was (at least) displayed at the Paris and Geneva Auto shows, featured in advertisements, and more than likely maxed out by a few of my forebears in the business.

That history, and the fact that it’s the only one in the country, is why it was invited to the Cobble Beach Concours at all, and how I ended up stewarding the car for one more adventure. I spent Thursday night, Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning going over the car again and again, trying to get it to present as well as it possibly could.

That may sound like a lot, but it’s possibly among the least amount of time anyone else spent getting their cars ready. Most of these cars spend years in restoration, and are shipped up here from across the country and several states in enclosed trailers, before being gone over again to make sure they are - I do not use this word lightly - perfect. One of the contestants who ended up taking top honours in the class for Japanese Sports Cars pulled the engine out of his car just to clean it; and that’s not even coming to close to the lengths that some of these people go to. Every car has a story behind it.

Our car is a driver, it’s lived a life and it hasn’t been a perfect one. I knew it wasn’t going to win any awards, I was just hoping it wouldn’t invite disdain from the judges, and I would’ve been thrilled if it didn’t place last in its category. Given that it was parked next to a RUF RCT, a Lamborghini Diablo SE30, and a TVR Sagaris - all in immaculate shape - I had reason to be worried.

We’ll circle back around to how this went later.

1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Brock Coupe

I was already vaguely familiar with the history and ensuing success of the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, a Cobra roadster redesigned by Pete Brock with a dramatically more effective shape for the high-speed circuits of Europe, but I was delighted to have the whole story told to me in great detail by the man himself!

Following the Cars an Coffee that takes over downtown Owen Sound on Saturday morning, there were two seminars that were open to anyone with ten bucks to spare; one from Mercedes-Benz’s chief archivist, Armin Groger, and another from Peter Brock, detailing his early career and how he designed the Cobra Coupe from a drawing he found in the archives of General Motors’ design centre, where he penned the initial idea for what would go on to become the Corvette Stingray.

It was a fascinating story of corporate internal politics, design, the then-burgeoning and oft-disregarded field of aerodynamics, and the pursuit of success in motorsport. You don’t have to know very much about cars or history to appreciate what this man did, and to hear him tell the tale, and regale about the long list of legends of the business who he worked with, is incredible. 

This particular car is not one of the original six Cobra Coupes, but instead the most painstaking recreation on Earth, starting with an original Cobra chassis and building on that, with even things like the colours on the period-correct sponsor decals recreated as closely as possible; Brock has assisted its owner at various stages of the creation process. It drove away with the Chairman's Award.

1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Superleggera

I really liked this because it’s so pretty. Compared to some of the other cars, it doesn’t have the most riveting history, it's not a one-of-one like many of the magnificent machines in attendance, it’s just a very rare, desperately pretty stand-out example of early post-war Alfa Romeo. 

I don’t mean this in a braggadocious way - I’m slightly ashamed of this and try not to make a show about it - but about as much as one man can, I sort of know everything when it comes to cars. It is very, very rare that I see a car that I can’t identify immediately. My favourite thing about the Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance is that the lawn is covered in gorgeous cars I haven’t seen or even heard of, and it gives me new threads to unwind and rabbit holes to wander down.

I’m sure I’m not the only one like this, but it’s a rare event when I get taken to school like this, that I get to learn something new and open up whole new pathways to explore, like discovering music as a child. I didn’t know I was this into art deco. I didn’t think I’d like this kind of shape this much. I didn’t know Touring Carrozzeria was so good at what they did. Unraveling those onions of history is worth the price of entry on its own.

It ended up taking its category, as well as the very prestigious overall Outstanding Post-War award, so I wasn’t the only person so moved by it.

1932 Rohr 8 Type F Streamliner

The first thing that struck me about this car - because I do sort of know everything - is not that it’s very unlike everything else I’ve seen from the pre-war era, or that's so far ahead of anything else from the early 30s, but that it had metallic paint, which didn’t really come around until the 1960s, some twenty years after this car was built. Surely a car wouldn’t be exhibited in the most coveted category with incorrect paint, so what gives?

Fish scales. The top coat is translucent with shimmering fish scales to give it the metallic sparkle that wouldn’t come around for two more decades. Rohr was a small German outfit that focused on forward thinking design and innovative engineering; this car's straight-eight engine was designed by none other than Ferdinand Porsche, and it stands as not only a one-of-a-kind, but one of the most extravagant for-its-time cars ever built.

It was previously sought out and restored by Horst Lautenschlager, a known German collector who was devoted to the care and collection of pre-war German artworks like this. Another of Mr. Lautenschlager's former cars was also in attendance, an Erdmann & Rossi bodied Mercedes-Benz 540K. That Mercedes took top honours in its category, along with the overall Most Outstanding Pre-War award, while this Rohr stole the overall Best in Show.

I did not know about Rohr. I did not know about this hero of German art cars. More threads to unwind. I don't get that from other shows.

How did our Lotus do?

The judges at these events, while very pleasant, are famously cagey; they will not tell you what your car scored, or how you ranked (unless you’re top 3 in your category and picked up an award). They seemed delighted to see the car and were impressed with its history, confirmed (by me) with chief archivists from Lotus and Opel; I and my friend, the car’s owner, both agreed “I think that went pretty well, right?”

It did! I was able to use my powers of persuasion later in the day to pierce through their protectiveness and learn that, at the very least, our car didn’t come last, and in a stacked category like ours with a lot working against our car, that’s enough of a win for me, as if being around all this incredible machinery in a beautiful setting wasn’t enough.

The Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance is always held in September, with the next one happening on the weekend of September 17th, 2027. The main event on Sunday is an absolute must-see, but the best way to take it all in is get a hotel room, or better, book an AirBnB and make a whole weekend out of it. It's the best weekend of the year.