Every August, something extraordinary happens on the eighteenth fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Somewhere between 175 and 230 of the rarest, most beautiful, most historically significant automobiles ever built are driven — gently, reverently, under their own power — onto the immaculate turf above Stillwater Cove, arranged in precise formation facing the Pacific Ocean, and judged. The Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance is not a race. It is not a static display. It is something rarer than either: a competition of elegance, the pinnacle of the global concours circuit, and the most important single day in the collector car calendar.

The Wall Street Journal has called it “the world’s best annual display of historic and beautiful cars.” That is not hyperbole. It is understatement.

How It Began

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance began in 1950 alongside the Pebble Beach Road Races — but the Concours itself was, as the story goes, a last-minute addition. It was conceived as a social gathering intended to add a bit of style to the anticipated main event. The road races ended in 1956, but the Concours continued and grew. It has run every year since 1950 with one missed year: 1960, cancelled due to scheduling conflicts. What began as a casual show of sports cars beside a forest road race has become, over 75 editions, the undisputed pinnacle of the global concours circuit.

The event is held each August as the centrepiece of Pebble Beach Automotive Week — a ten-day festival that has expanded to include more than 50 related events. These encompass vintage racing at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion), a Tour d’Élégance through the Monterey Peninsula (during which Concours entrants must prove their cars actually drive), a Classic Car Forum, RetroAuto exhibits, and a series of high-profile collector car auctions that routinely set world records. The Concours has raised more than $32 million for nearly 100 charities on the Monterey Peninsula since its charitable foundation was established — a fact that tends to be overshadowed by the spectacle, but speaks to the culture of the event.

The Competition: Classes, Judging, and Best of Show

Entrants are accepted through an application process. Classes are commonly arranged by type, marque (manufacturer), coachbuilder, country of origin, or time period. The event is open to both prewar and postwar collector cars judged for authenticity, function, history, and style.

In a typical year, around 25 judged classes are contested. The Concours Selection Committee meets in February to determine which cars will receive a coveted invitation to the August competition. Cars not previously shown at the Pebble Beach Concours or another major concours are given preference, and cars are generally not allowed to return to the show field within a ten-year period unless they have changed ownership and are freshly restored. This restriction alone ensures that the field renews itself continuously, and that arriving on the Pebble Beach lawn is itself a genuine achievement.

The judging process is two-fold. Class Judges focus primarily on originality and authenticity, assessing the quality of restoration or preservation. Honorary Judges direct their attention to design, styling, and elegance. The team of judges at recent events has collectively accumulated more than 2,200 years of judging experience at the Pebble Beach Concours alone. Senior judges carry pin links for every five years of service — some sporting pins that tally over 45 years.

Class winners are then reviewed by the senior judging committee. Tensions mount as the top three to four vote-getters are called to stage to be recognised as Best of Show Nominees. The final winner is announced amidst an explosion of confetti and the popping of corks. The winner receives a Lalique crystal trophy and — reflecting the event’s most prestigious sponsorship — an engraved Rolex watch. The Best of Show trophy is perpetual and maintained at Pebble Beach.

In addition to class and Best of Show awards, Honorary Judges award a number of subjective Special Awards including Elegance Awards, the J.B. & Dorothy Nethercutt Most Elegant Closed Car, the Gran Turismo Trophy (awarded since 2008 by Kazunori Yamauchi of PlayStation’s Gran Turismo), and various memorial awards created in honour of automotive industry figures. New car debuts from the world’s luxury and supercar brands — Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Ferrari, Koenigsegg, Lamborghini, McLaren, Rolls-Royce — are staged in corporate pavilions alongside the judged field, making Concours Sunday a live launch event as well as a historic competition.

The Winners: A Roll Call of Automotive Royalty

J.B. Nethercutt has the most Best of Show awards with six wins, while Bugatti and Mercedes-Benz are tied as the most successful marque with ten wins each as of 2024. The dominant makes across the event’s history — Rolls-Royce, Bugatti, Duesenberg, Mercedes-Benz, Packard — are brands defined by hand-built coachwork, extraordinary engineering, and the patronage of royalty, industrialists, and heads of state.

The 2025 Best of Show winner was a 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C Nieuport-Astra Torpedo, shown by Penny & Lee Anderson Sr. of Naples, Florida. Known as the “Tulipwood” Torpedo, the car is constructed of strips of mahogany, each individually carved to shape and joined to the inner ribs by 8,500 rivets. It was commissioned by French racing driver, flying ace, and aperitif scion André Dubonnet, who raced the car in both the Targa Florio and the Coppa Florio. In 2022 it had headlined RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale, achieving $9.245 million, securing its place as one of the most significant Hispano-Suizas ever built.

The 2019 Best of Show went to a 1931 Bentley 8 Litre Gurney Nutting Sports Tourer, shown by Sir Michael Kadoorie of Hong Kong — W.O. Bentley’s final creation and, at the time, the fastest and most luxurious Bentley ever built. The 2018 winner was a 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta, regarded by many historians as one of the most beautiful cars ever constructed. Both represented the event at its most characteristic: pre-war, coachbuilt, competition-bred, and immaculate.

The Setting: Why Pebble Beach

The location is not incidental. The eighteenth fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links — one of the most photographed pieces of turf in the world — slopes gently toward the Pacific, with Stillwater Cove shimmering in the background and Carmel Bay beyond. Cars are positioned nose-toward-ocean, their proportions framed by sea and sky, their coachwork colour-matched to California light. The combination of the setting and the quality of the cars creates a visual experience that photographs have consistently failed to fully convey. Dawn on Concours Sunday, when the cars are driven onto the lawn in the half-light before spectators arrive, is described by those who have witnessed it as one of the most extraordinary sights in the automotive world.

The show field opens to spectators with credentials at 8:00am. Judging commences shortly after and runs through the afternoon, with the Awards Ceremony and Live Show taking place from 1:30pm to 5:00pm. Attendance has historically been by ticket only, with Sunday passes typically selling for several hundred dollars and selling out well in advance of the event. Corporate hospitality — positioned in branded pavilions around the perimeter — is booked a year ahead.

The Tour d’Élégance: Proof of Life

Faced with criticism that concours beauties were too seldom driven, Concours Co-Chairmen decided in 1998 to ask Concours entries to prove themselves on a tour of the area — part driving test, part social outing — just a few days prior to the Concours. As incentive, they stipulated that cars that participated in the Tour would have the advantage if they tied in Concours class competition. The Tour d’Élégance, presented by Rolex, now winds through the back roads of the Monterey Peninsula to Pacific Grove, Carmel, and back — and a bright green ribbon on a car’s windscreen on Concours Sunday is a badge of both mechanical reliability and driver commitment.

The 75th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance is scheduled for August 16, 2026. It will be, as it has been for 75 years, the greatest show on wheels.