Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
June 8, 2018
Last year it was called the City Concours, but this year the name was changed to London City Concours because, as put by Octane magazine’s James Elliot, the original name “…did not quite do justice to the scale, reach or importance of the event to the whole of London.” Ok we got that.
Like last year, the event was held on the lawn of the Honourable Artillery Company, a charity incorporated in 1537 for the British Army, located in the heart of London. As you will see from the photographs the location is typical of the City of London. Fine Georgian houses mixed in with modern glass office buildings with a cricket pitch slap bang in the middle of it all.
Information about each car, whether in the catalog or on the placards, was very generic. No specific histories or owner’s names were supplied. Therefore our captions are similarly limited. The show catalog had very little info within, just the make and model of each car and year of construction.
According to the official catalog, the cars were displayed in four groups, or classes if you wil, were:
London Concours Paddock: for cars that didn’t quite fit in other classes
Global Endurance Legends: a club for owners of GT and Sports Racing Endurance cars built in the 1990s and 2000s
Royal Automobile Club Display: cars from the ancient British club
Evo Supercar Paddock: Whatever fits the definition of a Supercar as coined by Leanord J.K. Setright
But, all in all, a very pleasant afternoon in the summer sun.
Abarth 750 GT 750 Zagato
Worthy of a second look.
Giula Sprint Speciale
Alfa SZ
AC 428
AC Cobra 289
Alvis
Aston DB4GT
Aston Martin One 77.
Aston Martin V8
This Bentley 4.5 is a 3.0 Liter chassis fitted with a 4.5 engine.
Bentley 8 liter
BMW 2002 Tii
BMW Batmobil, as you know, is a 3.0 CSL with the factory body kit known as the Batmobile.
Isetta and Abarth
Brough Superior Redux. Really.
Ferrari 212, 8V, and Flaminia
Ferrari 212/225 but no serial number.
Ferrari Dino 246
ditto
Rob Walker 250SWB
A neat placard.
Ferrari 250GTL
FErrari 250GTL
250 GTL
365 Daytona
512 BB
550 Maranello
F12 TDF
F40
F50
La Ferrari
Fiat 8V
Fiat 8V
Fiat 8V
Fiat 8V
Fiat 124 Spider
The Jowett is the 1952 Le Mans class wining Jowett R1 Jupiter driven by Marcel Bequart and Gordon Wilkins. The owner had produced his own placard.
Lagonda 2 liter
Lagonda M35R
Lancia Aurelia – The car was featured in Octane Magazine and is the work of Thornley Kelham who are renowned for their Lancia restorations.
Lancia Aurelia engine.
Lancia Delta Intergrale
Lancia Flaminia
1978 Lincoln. Not Italian.
Mangusta
McLaren F1
Mors
Mustang GT500
Panhard Levassor Paris Amsterdam Paris Racing car
HRH Prince Michael and Renault Type CC 1911
Renault Type CC 1911
Porsche 356 Speedster
Some people have more equipment than I !
The Beast of Turin.
The Best in Show winner.
The HMS Belfast was alas not an entrant in the Concours but whilst walking through London to the event I could not resist being a bit touristy and taking a shot of HMS Belfast, a Royal Navy light cruiser from WW2 and now a Museum. Behind the Belfast is Tower Bridge and to the left of Tower Bridge in the photo is the Tower of London.
Quite a show, thanks for the coverage.
Excellent feature, Jonathan… great pics!