Palm Beach Cavallino Classic 26 – Concorso d’Eleganza

Words by Keith Bluemel

The 26^th annual Cavallino Classic gathering ran between the 25^th and 29^th of January 2017, drawing a wonderful selection of Ferrari models to Palm Beach, and more importantly the host The Breakers Hotel, for the highlight concours on the Saturday. The event followed its tried and tested format of track days at Palm Beach International Raceway on the weekdays of the event, with social functions in the evenings, namely the Jet Reception at Jet Aviation’s facility at Palm Beach International Airport on the Thursday evening, the track awards reception at the Beach Club at The Breakers on the Friday, and the concours awards reception and dinner at The Breakers the next day.

The major Ferrari concours on the Saturday was held under predominantly bright blue skies, with only an occasional wisp of light cloud and very comfortable ambient temperatures throughout the day. The croquet lawn fronting The Breakers always features the rarer examples of the marque, and this year featured two “Speciales” as the central display. One of these was a 1967 330 GTC, chassis # 08753, with a host of special features that differentiated it from the standard model, looking very elegant in pale metallic green with a full red leather interior with complimenting removable green cloth seat centres. The other car was the SP275RW Competizione, which had made its debut on the concours lawn at the Finali Mondiali at Daytona in December 2016. This is the latest car to come out of Ferrari’s Special Projects division, and is F12 based, chassis # 223542, which is a modern tribute to the 275 GTB/C Speciale, chassis # 06885, and is resplendent in metallic yellow with blue carbon fibre accents, with a contrasting blue leather interior with yellow and blue carbon fibre accents, making an interesting display and comparison of “ancient and modern” one-off special designs. Amongst the other cars on display on this lawn was a pair of 212 Cabriolets, a 342 America PF Coupe, a 340 America Ghia Coupe, a 250 MM Vignale Spider, a pair of 250 GT “TdF” Berlinettas and a quartet of 250 GT SWB Berlinettas.

The featured model for 2017 was the Dino, with a fine selection of examples on display, including an early 206 GT, chassis # 00136, through 246 GT and 246 GTS examples in one class, and 308 GT4s in another, which included the first production example, chassis # 07202, which won the award for the finest 8 cylinder car. Within the thirteen classes there were a number of “display only” cars, including a 412 MI Spider Scaglietti, a 250 GTO, a Dino 206 S and a 365 GTB4/C, but the one which attracted the most attention was a “barn find” 275 GTS. This was not only because of its “distressed” condition, but also because a local fox decided that underneath it was a good place to shelter from the sun! Eventually the car was cordoned off, and the local police turned up for guard duty lest it should try and attack someone, until the animal welfare people turned up to catch it, which it wasn’t very happy about. It was released back where it started later in the day, as apparently it had been on guard duty for a vixen and cubs that were found to be nesting nearby, but it made for an interesting aside to the day.

The results of the concours are held back until the awards dinner on the Saturday evening, where to many people’s surprise the Best of Show Competition Car award went to a 348 Challenge car, chassis # 98159, which probably surprised the owner, Chip Williams, even more, as he had already left the dinner prior to the major awards presentation, after collecting his class platinum award! However, as previously mentioned the majority of the competition cars present were “display only” and thus not eligible for the overall major awards, for which it was necessary to have obtained a class platinum award. The overall Best of Show GT Car award was far less contentious, as it went to the magnificently presented, and freshly restored, 212 Export Vignale Cabriolet, chassis # 0110 E, of Peter Kalikow from New York.