Now Celebrating Lemons

Monterey Car Week is normally associated with immaculate Ferraris, priceless Bugattis and judges inspecting paintwork with the concentration of bomb-disposal experts.

Then there is the Concours d’Lemons.

It celebrates what the organisers call the “un-best” of the motoring world: bad cars in good condition, good cars in terrible condition and machines whose manufacturers may prefer us to forget they ever existed.

The judging is not entirely conventional.  Bribery is positively encouraged, although one judge advises against accepting anything you cannot identify!

This year’s Ford category was won by an Edsel in genuine show condition. There was also a demolition-derby survivor with its tailgate secured by a rusty chain. Somehow, it was road-legal and had been driven to the event.

However, the award for Worst of Show went to a 1932 Franklin Club Sedan.

Its owner had bought it in Maryland on the Monday before the show and immediately set off for Monterey, California.

That is a journey of roughly 3,000 miles in a 94-year-old car you have owned for a matter of hours. It is either admirable confidence, complete recklessness or an unusually potent mixture of the two.

Behind the joke, the Concours d’Lemons makes a rather good point.

The classic-car world would be much poorer if everyone only cared about the cars already considered desirable.  An Edsel may never have the status of a Ferrari, but restoring one properly demands just as much patience, research and craftsmanship.

Quite possibly more, because finding the correct parts for an unpopular car can be considerably harder.

The cars we become attached to are not always the ones a concours judge would choose.  Sometimes it is the shape, the engineering, a family connection or simply the fact that everybody else thinks you are slightly mad for owning it.

And if all of this is a little too American for you, we have the Festival of the Unexceptional.  That’s much better.  And they are both run by Hagerty.

Anyway, here are a lot of photos from the event.

Thanks,
Neil @ Carrosserie
Tel: 01833 630 011

PS. Please contact us if we can help with your classic car, however questionable its reputation.