A 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports was just deemed Best of Show, the pinnacle award at the prestigious 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
The car is owned by the Pearl Collection in Zug, Switzerland.
“I am not the owner of the car. I am the custodian,” a representative told Car and Driver from the judges’ stand, surrounded by ribbons of blown confetti, immediately after being handed the trophy.
The car, which has a lengthy provenance in racing, with numerous Grand Prix races, was also owned by colonialist King Leopold III of Belgium, who gave it its existing black-and-yellow livery, in alignment with the Belgian national colors.
When asked why he was interested in this car, and why he thinks it won, the custodian, who purchased the car four years ago at a Gooding & Co. auction in London, said, “Is this really a question?” He gestured at the low, sleek, torpedo-shaped racer. “If you love Bugatti, if you love prewar, if you love preservation, this is the pinnacle. That’s the one.”
First Preservation-Class Car to Win
This car demonstrates a significant break with tradition at Pebble, which has long awarded its highest honors to meticulously overrestored coachbuilt cars created during the interwar era in the 1920s and 1930s. This is the first so-called preservation-class car to win: one that is unrestored and wears its historic narrative, proudly, in its pitted and faded bodywork and its worn interior.
“It’s unheard of for a preservation-class car to win this concours,” said Ken Gross, who has been a judge at Pebble Beach and other top concours for decades, in addition to the author of numerous books and museum exhibits on the subject of classic cars. “It’s exciting that a car doesn’t have to be restored to win here.”
This opens a new category for top winner at Pebble, but not just any quality barn find should apply. “This is the best of the best in prewar sports cars. It has amazing provenance and is extremely important,” Gross says.
We should certainly revel in this paradigm shift and the rich history that this vehicle helps to illustrate, not just about our love of cars and design, but the world that surrounded and continues to surround it.
But the real glory of every car on the field—and in the ancillary concourses, parking lots, racetracks, and roadways around the Monterey Peninsula this week—lies in no small part in their ability to help us create a sense of shared connection.
Brett Berk (he/him) is a former preschool teacher and early childhood center director who spent a decade as a youth and family researcher and now covers the topics of kids and the auto industry for publications including CNN, the New York Times, Popular Mechanics and more. He has published a parenting book, The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting, and since 2008 has driven and reviewed thousands of cars for Car and Driver and Road & Track, where he is contributing editor. He has also written for Architectural Digest, Billboard, ELLE Decor, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure and Vanity Fair.
Source: www.caranddriver.com