The cars headlining the CarPort are seldom elegant. That in itself is reason to take a breather from the rusty and underloved cars you usually see here and indulge in a full week of elegance. There’s no better example of elegance than this Siata 208S spider.
“Elegant,” to engineers, means no more complicated than necessary to perform its intended function. That sums up the Siata, a truly simple sporting machine, so basic that it has no speedometer,
only a tach. Under the skin, though, it’s not so simple, for it has a Fiat 8V engine, a two-litre 70-degree pushrod V8 that makes a glorious noise. It was one of some 300 cars exhibited this past weekend at the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance in Connecticut.
This was the tenth annual Greenwich Concours, conceived and chaired by Bruce and Genia Wennerstrom and held at
water’s edge in scenic Greenwich Harbor. Not all cars had the simple elegance of the Siata. Saturday’s best of show, a
1929 Hibbard and Darrin-bodied Stutz, held high its distinctive Woodlites, and Sunday’s best, Jack Thomas’s
Ferrari 375 America, built for Gianni Agnelli, looked
less Ferrari-like than the
Siata beside it.
There were Packards galore, including a yummy
butterscotch 120B victoria with body by LeBaron and a
1935 Super Eight 7-passenger sedan recently unearthed by movie car mogul Nick Pagani (seen here with his
namesake car brought by another exhibitor).
There were cars of personalities, like
Ernie Kovacs’ 1951 Bentley Mark VI and Henry Crane’s own
Crane Simplex.
Mrs. Crane thoughtfully took time from her reading to tell us about the car, as did
Master Tomko for his father’s 1912 Buick, once in the Dick Teague collection.
Spectators could see
engines, and automotive spectacles, like a
Kaiser doffing its
top. Celebrities included veteran race driver
John Fitch (being interviewed by Bob Long for Motor Trend Weekend radio), who brought his one-off
Phoenix, and pioneer female racer Janet Guthrie, signing copies of her new autobiography A Life at Full Throttle.
A circle titled the “Best of the Best” highlighted winners from earlier years, like Brian Beni’s 1935
SS1 Airline coupe and Sam Mann’s
Dodge Firearrow. Recently liberated from New Europe was a
Tatra T613, contrasted by a meticulously-restored “Frog Eye” MkI
Austin-Healey Sprite.
The Greenwich Concours d’Elegance benefits Americares, a non-profit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization. It is held each year on the first weekend in June at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, Connecticut. Put Greenwich on your itinerary for 2006.
