The Anantara Concorso Roma and why intimacy is becoming the most valuable aspect of a concours
Last week, Rome hosted its first concours d'elegance in sixty years. The Anantara Concorso Roma ran April 16-19 at the Casina Valadier, in the gardens of Villa Borghese, with 70 cars and a rule that no other major event enforces: Italian marques only. Best of Show went to a 1932 Maserati V4 Sport Zagato - a 16-cylinder machine with complete and stunning provenance that set a world speed record in 1929.
I wasn't there, but I've been watching, and the result tells you something important about where the concours calendar is heading.
The problem with the big ones
Pebble Beach is the most famous concours in the world. It is also, increasingly, a week-long brand activation with a car show attached. That isn't a criticism of the cars on the lawn - the entry list remains extraordinary. But walk the 18th fairway on a Sunday in August and count how many conversations are about auction estimates versus how many are about the cars themselves. The ratio has shifted.
Amelia Island is the same story. What started as a serious collector event in 1996 has grown into a week-long festival with auctions, manufacturer pavilions, and enough sponsored content to wallpaper a hangar. The cars are real. The context around them is increasingly not.
This happens to every successful event eventually. Scale brings money, money brings sponsors, sponsors bring agendas, and before long the judges are fighting for space on the lawn with a display of new SUVs from a brand that just signed a naming rights deal.
What an intimate concours actually feels like
As a collector experience - as an event you attend because you love the cars - Pebble has drifted. The intimacy is gone. You are watching something rather than participating in it.
Take the Dawn Patrol. The pre-dawn procession of cars rolling onto the 18th fairway as the sun comes up was once the purest moment of the entire week - a quiet gathering of the people who actually cared, watching extraordinary machines find their place on the lawn in the half-light. It was never supposed to be an event. Now there are queues. Now there are limited-edition hats that people line up to fight over. That shift, more than any sponsor deal or manufacturer pavilion, tells you exactly what Pebble has become.
The events that still feel like a concours are doing the opposite. I've been judging the San Marino Motor Classic for the past few years. It happens on a Sunday in June at Lacy Park - a 30-acre private park in a residential neighborhood outside Los Angeles that is normally closed to non-residents on weekends. The field runs to pre- and post-war categories, the entry list is curated, and when you sit down to judge a class, you are talking to the owner, looking at the car, and making a decision based on what's in front of you. No competing noise.
Villa d'Este on Lake Como works the same principle at a higher altitude. Thirty-odd cars on the terrace of the Villa, a jury that includes people who've spent their careers with these machines, and an atmosphere that rewards knowledge over spectacle. It is not a coincidence that a Best of Show from Villa d'Este carries more weight in a serious collector's conversation than one from a field of 200 cars.
What Rome got right
The Italian-only rule at Anantara Roma is the most interesting curatorial decision on the concours calendar right now. It is a restriction that forces a conversation - what is the arc of Italian automotive design, and who sits at its pinnacle? That is a more interesting question than "which is the most beautiful car regardless of origin," because it has a point of view baked in.
The judges understood it. Jean Todt and Pininfarina designer Lorenzo Ramaciotti on the same panel is not a decorative choice - these are people with institutional memory. And two cars ran in the field with their original, unrestored paint and interiors - a 1934 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 from the Bulgari Foundation and a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC in original gold metallic. That those cars were invited and competed seriously tells you about the organizers' values.
The event was actually supposed to debut in 2025. It was postponed out of respect for the passing of Pope Francis, with cars already in situ and guests arriving. That decision cost money and caused real logistical disruption. It was the right call, and the kind of call that tells you something about who's running the event.
Pebble still matters - just not in the way it used to
None of this is to say Pebble Beach is irrelevant. If you are consigning a significant car, auction week in Monterey remains the most important seven days on the calendar. Values get established there. Records get set. The concentration of serious buyers per square foot is unmatched.
But you are going there to do business. That is a different thing from going because you love the cars.
6.00am the morning of the Pebble Beach Concours - the ‘Dawn Patrol’ is now a Hagerty sponsored event that lost its authenticity…
What to actually put in the diary
The concours calendar is fragmenting, and the serious collector is better off for it. You can now construct a year that reflects a genuine point of view - focused events where the judging means something, one international event with serious entry standards, and Monterey if you have business there.
San Marino in June. Villa d'Este in May. And keep an eye on Rome - a concours that earns a Best of Show like the Maserati V4 Zagato in its inaugural year has earned the right to be on the list.
New focused events are emerging across the globe - the Royal Bahrain Concours launched in November 2025 under royal patronage with 90 hand-selected cars at the Royal Golf Club; the Concorso d'Eleganza Japan returned after a six-year hiatus, setting world-class cars against the 1,300-year backdrop of Yakushiji Temple in Nara; and the Oberoi Concours d'Elegance held its second edition this February in Udaipur, against the backdrop of Lake Pichola, with a jury that included Jackie Stewart, Jean Todt and Giacomo Agostini. The format is spreading because the appetite is there. Serious collectors increasingly want an experience that matches the quality of the cars - not a festival with a car show attached.
The lawn at Pebble will be beautiful in August. It always is. But the best conversation you'll have about cars this year probably won't happen there.
God Save the Wheels.
