Saturday-Sunday, November 1-2, 2003
At last! A car show that fits Gael's style.. Faithful readers may recall that our last attempt at attending a Concours (Pebble Beach in 2002) was aborted by Gael falling down the front steps of the hotel and breaking her leg. ANYhow..
When I showed the CE at "The Gathering" in Savannah sponsored by Coastal Corvettes this past April, Paul Doerring (co-chair of the Hilton Head Concours d'Elegance) invited us to display the car there. Sure thing!
This is the second year for what will surely be one of the premier Concours events in the country. Hilton Head Island is a lovely place to visit and the Concours location was just beautiful. The South's other premier Concours, Amelia Island, should look over their shoulder!
We were invited because, this year, the featured marques are Buick (celebrating its 100th birthday) and Corvette (celebrating its 50th).
We arrived on Hilton Head Island Friday afternoon with Gael's Cadillac as "tender vehicle". We stayed at the Concours HQ hotel, the Inn at Harbor Town. What an wonderful, excellent hotel:
At 7AM Saturday morning on the show field at Honey Horn we were assigned our spot in the display field:
The Concours provided a heavy metal "license plate" with info about the car:
..and an even more descriptive sign later in the day (if you have difficulty reading the placard, just click on the image to see it larger):
On the display field were several unique Corvettes including four from the GM prototype collection:
Bill Mitchell's Mako Shark
The StingRay Racecar
The mid-engined XP882
The mid-engined, gullwing AeroVette
But, for me, the real thrill was being parked two cars away from the original 1953 Corvette prototype -- the one that was on the turntable at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in January, 1953. This car (the EX122), now owned by Kerbeck Chevrolet, is "patient zero" for the Corvette disease:
And here it is from Kerbeck's website:
(Click the image for the full story of EX-122)
Fans of Corvette trivia will notice that the wing on the sidespear points down. All production 1953 Corvettes have the wing pointing up. Legend has it that the fellow who was doing the last minute prep for the Motorama car put each spear on the wrong side. Once they were photographed that way (pointing down) it was too late to change it for the publicity shots. And now you've seen (and I've touched) the oldest Corvette that ever was..
The CE continues to attract attention:
If you don't want to talk about this nifty car, you better not get one! A special treat for us: We met the owner of 1953CE #1 (who was here judging Corvettes) and we met Mo Glunt, soon-to-be owner of 1953CE #62!
There were really two car shows; one on Saturday and another on Sunday. Here's a shot of the Saturday Show Corvettes:
"True Blasberry Prism Chromalusion" paint always gets lots of attention:
The Hilton Head High School band played for us:
Directly across from the Corvette Display field was a marquis put up by Buick to display the show cars and historical cars they brought:
This is a Buick "Bug" racer from 1910
The Buick "Y-Job" which set styling for much of the '50s
How LOW can you go?
The 1954 Buick Wildcat II
The first Buick Riviera
In the arena of "things to come.."
Did I take pictures of more cars? Did I? Click HERE for seventy-one more!
We had a wonderful time, met new friends and enjoyed the Concours thorougly. It's too bad we won't be asked back :)
Click HERE for the next chapter..
