Automotive

Greystone Mansion Concours d'Elegance 2013

 

I spent the past Sunday afternoon enjoying the beautiful setting in Beverly Hills at the historic Greystone Mansion for the 2013 Concours d'Elegance event.  This was the 4th annual event at Greystone Mansion and featured vintage and classic automobiles manufactured prior to 1975.  

The event was not just to showcase some spectacular vehicles, but also serves as a fundraiser event for the continued restoration and preservation of Greystone which is a nationally registered historic landmark. 

There were a number of marques that were shown at Greystone, but the event also payed tribute to the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Chevrolet Corvette, and also the 40th Anniversary of the Porsche 911 RS.  I'm a huge Corvette fan and have been enjoying all the celebrations here in Los Angeles (including the Petersen Auto Museum 60th Corvette event in March, and the Corvette Coral event and ALMS race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach in April). 

We arrived in the early afternoon and the shuttle took us to the Concours Car Field in the upper lot of Greystone.   I immediately headed over to the Corvette area:

My favorite of all the Corvettes, a 1960 Corvette Convertible.  I love the color combination with the red exterior and white coves.

I was excited to hear that Lawry's was catering the event.  The staff did a good job and they wisely setup several covered areas to serve lunch throughout the day.  I was expecting some delicious roast beef sandwiches however Lawry's decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and offered a Mexican themed menu with Spanish rice, refried beans, roasted pork carnitas sliders, shrimp ceviche, roasted yellow corn and caesar salad.   In a few of these Lawry's booths, they ran out of bread for the sliders and ended serving a mini salad with the pork carnitas on the bottom.  Disappointing for me but most people seemed to enjoy the food. 








Stella Artois set up a pretty cool beer garden next to the formal gardens with free souvenir logo'd stemware.  And dessert stations were placed around the mansion park grounds, with excellent fried churros with a vanilla dipping sauce, fresh cut fruit salad, and a warm flourless chocolate cake.

This was new to me, a delicious prickly pear and passionfruit lemonade.

And since this is a watch forum, I found the IWC display that was hosted by the staff from the IWC Beverly Hills Boutique.  Only a few watches were on display, however they did have the new Ingenieur Automatic AMG Black Ceramic Series chronograph which is new from SIHH 2013.

After lunch in the formal gardens and meeting some new friends at our table, we wandered around the park grounds down steps from the concours field.

In the area leading up to the courtyard of the main Greystone Mansion, the Auto Gallery showcased two McLaren mp4 12c's:

In the main courtyard, we have local BH area dealerships displaying a Lamborghini Aventador:

And a Bugatti Veyron




BH Aston Martin had a Rapide and the new 2014 Vanquish with a 6.0 liter V-12 powerplant:

Tiffany sponsored the prizes for the event, and they brought out a matching Tiffany blue with white interior Bentley Continental GTC Beverly Hills edition:

At the Greystone Mansion entryway, Porsche displayed 5 cars from their current collection:

I really like the styling updates on the Cayman and the Boxster.  The popup rear wing and the integrated spoiler/brakelights look fantastic:

We made our way back up to the concours field for the fashion show and awards ceremony.  We got to hear this gorgeous Ford GT40 fire up:

2013 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Porsche 911 RS and center field had a dozen or so RS's on display:

I'm not sure if Porsche offered this as a factory color, but there were plenty of colorful 911's around:

During the awards ceremony, Ford / Chrysler legend Mr. Lee Iaococca himself was in attendance for the Lee Iaococca Foundation annual presentation of their philanthropy award

This was my first time attending this event and we all had a fun time, and I'm looking forward to coming back next year.  Hope you all enjoyed the pics!

Regards,
ED-209