2000 Concorso Italiano
The Concorso Italiano is held the same weekend as the Monterey Historic Races, Pebble Beach Councours, etc. There were a reported 700 Italian and 400 non-Italian cars at Carmel Valley's Quail Lodge Resort this year. This is the first year I'd been to this event, and I'd never seen this many Italian sports and touring cars in one place before. Each was in beautiful condition and stunning to see in person. Car Corrals for non-Italian cars were on the South side of the valley including Lotus, BMW, Mercedes, NSX. This was the first year Lotuses were invited to Concorso Italiano.(Click on any image for a larger version.)
Lotuses included Elise 340R, Elise 190, Lotus Motorsports Elise, Xanthos 23 Extreme powered by a supercharged VTEC engine, Elans, Europas, Sevens, Esprits. Though Lotus currently sells all the Elise models as street and race cars in Europe and Asia, Lotus sells only Esprit in the U.S.
Italian cars were on the North greens.
As with the 2000 Historics, the featured Marque at this year's
Concorso Italiano was Maserati.
The northern leg of the course had approximately 300 Ferraris of many vintages, with 100 being judged in the concours. What do 300 Ferrari's look like? I can't show you since they wouldn't all fit in one picture!
There were 50's and 60s Ferraris,
sports cars like California Spyders, 250 GTs, 250 GTOs,
and touring coupes,
ever-beautiful Pininfarina-styled 275 GTBs,
V-6 206 and 246 Dinos,
8 cylinder 308s, 328s, 348s, 355s, 360 Modenas,
flat-12 512 Berlinetta Boxers, Testarossas and 512 TRs,
V-12 456s, 550 Maranellos,
Daytonas,
a rare and beautiful twin-turbo V-8 288 GTO,
later twin-turbo V-8 F40s,
a 513 HP V-12 F50.
Many colors and variations of the late model Ferraris were represented.
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