A member of the Electric Dream Team had the opportunity to photograph a mouth-watering array of classic cars at the Kirkland Concours d’Elegance on the show Field at the LeMay Museum in Tacoma, Washington, September 8, 2013. This event always brings out an amazing variety of top-quality cars of all types and eras. Here, for your enjoyment, are some of our favorites from the event.
At an event like this the car show starts in the parking lot. Both the Alfa and the Beetle were in like-new condition.
This MGA undoubtedly provides a lot of driving fun for its owner.
Here’s the show field, with the city of Tacoma in the background.
This C2 Corvette does it all- vintage racing, road rallies, and car shows.
This McLaren M29 was driven back in the day by Alain Prost.
And what classic car show would be complete without a Ferrari F1 car?
A special feature this year was woodies. This 1948 Packard was one of our favorites.
Here’s another one we really like because this very rare late 1940s Chrysler is a woody but not a wagon. The owner says the restoration of this car did not require replacing any of the wood. Note the wood roof rack.
This early 50s Buick is another woody we’d love to go cruising in. The owner would probably be horrified, but what a surf wagon this would have made.
Another beautiful wagon, though not a woody, is this mid-50s Buick. Note that this wagon is a hardtop – no center door post.
This Kaiser Darrin sports car has a unique feature. The doors slide into the front fenders.
This first-generation Lincoln Continental was built in 1947.
The second-generation Lincoln Continental appeared in the 1950s.
Speaking of Lincolns, check this out – a genuine Pan American Road Race entry. The Lincolns were formidable competitors in the race, which celebrated the completion of the Pan American Highway by using part of it as an open-road race course.
This 1932 Packard comes with a rumble seat that has its own windshield.
This Auburn Speedster is exactly the car you would expect a star of the silver screen to arrive at a Hollywood party in. Of all the pre-World War II cars on the field it’s the one we’d most like to own – except for one problem. Even if we could afford to buy it in the first place, it’s such a rare and iconic car we’d never be able to enjoy actually driving it on the open road.
Still, this car is a true work of art. The classic boat-tail styling and the paint and details of the car are exquisite. This is automotive sculpture at its finest. If we did own it we’d have to have a replica built so we could actually enjoy the experience of driving a car like this. And if we could afford the original we could afford the replica.
Here’s another prewar car to die for. If there’s a better representative of the art deco school of car design we can’t think of it.. The hood is fully half the length of the car. We could imagine a hot rod version of it powered by a Dodge Viper V-10 engine. No, make that two of them. There’s probably room. It’s a 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C-2900B Touring. Its lines are truly beautiful, but we wonder what it’s like to parallel park.
This 1952 Mercedes W191 is an ancestor of the all-conquering 300SLRs and all Mercedes Gullwings. If you look closely you will see a modern roll bar inside it, which likely means this historic machine is or at least has been vintage raced, as all the great race cars of the past should be.
This 1923 Mercedes comes with a built-in toolbox, which undoubtedly was a very handy feature, considering the kind of roads cars of that era were often driven on.
This 1966 Lamborghini is an early example of the marque. Feruccio Lamborghini is said to have entered the car business when Ferrari refused to make a car to his specifications. Lamborghini, a successful manufacturer of farm tractors, decided to get the car he wanted by branching out into the manufacture of cars, and the rest is history. Note the woody wagons in the background.
Frank Kurtis was a highly successful builder of race cars. He was the originator of the Indianapolis 500 roadster concept, and his designs dominated the 500 in the early 1950s. Kurtis also built V8-powered road cars, of which this 1952 Kurtis 500M is an example. If you wanted the closest thing possible an Indy 500 roadster to drive on the street or in a sports car race you could have one, though it was a fair weather car only. Still, it must be a blast to drive.
Admission to the Concours also included admission to the museum. This car, the 1956 Corvette SR2 ,was part of the museum’s 60 Years of Corvette exhibit. The SR2 was a step in the development process that led to the Corvette SS of 1957, which raced only once before GM joined in the infamous ban on factory support for racing that year. Of course, GM never really stopped supporting racing, it just took its support underground.
The LeMay Museum is a truly great experience for anyone who enjoys cars in all their countless variations. You can find out more about the museum at www.lemaymuseum.org.
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