March has come quickly and most of you know what that means – the first big event of the year happens with the always-exciting Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. It seems that this event gets bigger each and every year for the Porschephiles – the rarity and number of Porsches on the field is downright astounding. In contrast, it brings out tough competition to all judged classes. If you follow us on social media you might already know what the weekend consisted of but for those of you who don’t here is the recap.
Unlike years in the past, our team prepped four cars with the intention of being judged. We had two cars from the Ingram Collection to prep for the “Carrera” class in the main event and 2 of our favorite customers cars being judged at the Werks Reunion.
Cars judged by event:
Werks Reunion
Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance
The weekend was kicked off by the PCA Werks Reunion with the celebration of “Outlaws” on Friday morning. When you mention the word “Outlaw” and “Porsche” in the same sentence of course the name that follows is our good friend Rod Emory. Rod had an incredible display of his well-known show stoppers including the Le Mans winning 1951 Porsche 356SL as well as the impressive all-wheel drive, 200hp 356C4S. But Rod wasn’t the only one who brought out some impressive outlaws. The whole field was filled with impressive Outlaws and all original Porsches with great history. Of course, our 356 Bent Window Outlaw was placed in the highly competitive 356 Outlaw class. The 944 Outlaw was placed in a somewhat of a different class – the “Stock 944 Class” for the fact a 944 Outlaw class just didn’t exist. When it came time to be judged, Kevin Watts took over and pitched the judges on why the ’53 Bent Window was by far the best candidate for first place which ended up working as the ’53 took first place at the end of the day. Our 944 Outlaw owner did his own pitch to the judges and ended up receiving 2nd place in the all original class. How ironic.
The Main Event was pushed to Saturday due to anticipation for rain on Sunday. We unloaded and staged the two ’59 Carreras on Friday night which gave us a preview of our competition for the “Carrera” class. The competition was heavy with one competitor being the first ever produced Porsche 356 Carrera as well as 10 other documented and rare contenders (a 904 GTS, Carrera RS, Abarth Carrera GT, Speedster GT etc.). Saturday morning came quickly and from years of Amelia Island show experience, it’s a must getting to the field at 6am to spend the 2 hours it takes wiping down the cars from the Florida humidity-produced dew. Fortunately, once the cars were dry the judges were right there ready to get the judging underway. The 1959 356 Carrera GT aka “Ruby” was up first followed by the 1959 356 Carrera GS. Both cars were presented by Cam Ingram (on behalf of the Ingram Collection) with our specially made “war book” that we give to all judges. After the “waiting” period and the judges tallied the results the 1959 356 Carrera GS came away with a 2nd place Amelia Award and the 1959 356 Carrera GT ended up with The Porsche Corporate award (the award for the most historically significant production Porsche on the field).
In all it was another great Amelia Island weekend for the books. None of this could be possible without a great team and amazing clients who allow us to continue to do this year after year.