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Italian village, race cars screaming by a
grandstand, muscle cars in the parking lot
of a burger joint or a diner in Los Angeles,
an assortment of Shelbys outside the air-
port facility, a Duesenberg or a Packard in
the driveway of a fine mansion, a cabriolet
or a woody at a picnic in the country, and
always the people in the painting describe
the activity. The string-back gloved suitor
with the bundle of flowers for the girl look-
ing down from the second story window,
the drivers and crews, the fans and the
journalists at the track, teenagers and
their hot rods, dinner guests in formal at-
tire, the family on a picnic complete the
image, telling a story. The paintings drew
me in, shook out the memories and made
me daydream of being in them.
No visit to the Pebble Beach Concours
is without celebrity sightings. Jay Leno is
probably the best known of them. 2015
photos made me hunt for the one I took of
him at the 1991 Concours. He doesn’t look
that much different. I found photos of Mr.
Leno in the 2013 SAAC annual on pages
73 and 74, standing by his aluminum body
427 S/C Cobra replica at SAAC-11 in 1986.
The associated article written by Rick
Kopec, states Leno bought the first Gerisch
replica for half the cost of an original 427
Cobra at the time. Pretty good deal in 2015
dollars. You can’t buy an unpainted alu-
minum body for what Leno paid for his en-
tire car. It must have been one of the first
of his now extensive and eclectic collection.
He still owns it. Leno looked like a tall,
skinny guy in the 1986 image. I guess as
he became famous between 1986 and 1991,
his food budget grew with his income. Now
he’s, well, a little...bigger.
One of the remarkable things about
Leno is the humility with which he inter-
views car owners, when his encyclopedic
knowledge and experience with a make
and model he owns himself, is such that he
may be as knowledgeable about the car as
the car owner is. This is an impression
formed from eavesdropping on his inter-
view with John Atzbach on the concours
field. Leno interviews respectfully, as if he
genuinely wants to learn about the car,
placing the owner in a position of greater
knowledge. He makes it all about the car
and the car owner, not about Jay Leno. It’s
easy to see why he was such a successful
Tonight Show host. I doubt anyone does it
better.
I listened to the leader of the three
GT350 class judges describe how he felt
about choosing the best of the cars in this
class. He said something to the effect of, “
I
do not feel fortunate to have to choose be-
tween these great cars that are all so well
presented.
”
During the judging, one of the owners
left the hood down but unlatched. I noticed
through the opening between hood and
fender, the upper radiator hose leaking
down the side of the radiator at the fitting.
YIKES! I whispered to one of the people
who restored the car. He quickly shut the
hood before the judges noticed. One of the
three award winning cars, the under-hood
inspection had already been performed. It
might have caused a conundrum.
One of the judges reported a license
plate light was out, a point-losing offense.
It only required the inspector to place his
head under the bumper were he could see
it was, in fact, shining. I’ve heard similar
tales like the one when a judge listened to
the exhaust note of a 12-cylinder Ferrari
with the hood down, and chastised the
owner for bringing the car on the field with
a loose timing chain. That judge might
have had the best ear in the history, but I
doubt it.
Please shoot me if I ever enter a car in
a judged concours competition. People’s
Choice, I love. Judge’s Choice, not as much.
I admit though, competition makes for a
quality presentation.
By now, you probably know John
Atzbach’s 1965 “R” Model, 5R002, the first
Shelby team GT350 race car, was judged
best in class. Mark Hovander’s car, the
GT350 prototype street car, 5S003, that
started it all, followed. Bobby Rahal’s
GT350 street car, 5S558, was judged third
best. The car was sold before most specta-
tors had arrived home. Additionally – and
significantly – Atzbach’s car received the
Road & Track
Trophy for the car the edi-
tors of the magazine would most like to
drive.
I wonder, of these earliest GT350s cre-
ated by hand, thinly documented and mod-
ified during their 49 or 50 year life, if
anyone knows what a perfect example ac-
tually is. I don’t know how the judges iden-
tified and counted “defects” if any, or what
criteria they used, but I feel that, in this
case, their choices were good ones.
It would be inappropriate for me to
render an opinion on the relative merits of
any of these individual cars. For general
observation, I can say this: the Pebble
Beach Concours d’ Elegance is a time and
place reserved for the world’s greatest au-
tomobiles. Some collectors spend fortunes
acquiring significant cars, restoring them
for acceptance, and never succeed. They
can only dream.
By the time the awards were distrib-
uted in the late afternoon, and the winning
cars rolled across the ramp to be cele-
brated by the crowd, I was exhausted from
a nearly week-long car-fest; hot, dusty,
probably dehydrated, tired from lugging
around an overstuffed camera kit and lap-
top, and feeling ready for the 24-hour Con-
cours d’ Sleep.
From the water side of the ramp, you
are not permitted to stand up to photo-
graph the award presentation, so the view
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Winter 2016 46