The only surprise about the UAE playing host to a glamorous concours of elegance event is that it hasn’t happened before now, given the region’s fondness for multimillion-dirham cars that are often as much works of art as they are machines for getting from A to B.
The inaugural Gulf Concours this weekend on the terrace of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai is set to evoke the spirit of Pebble Beach in California and Villa d’Este in Italy, hallowed peaks of the motoring calendar that have become equally popular with collectors, enthusiasts and high-society hobnobbers.
With a typically modern Middle Eastern twist, the Gulf Concours will also feature an array of bespoke cars, including a display from UAE hypercar-maker W Motors, alongside classics and the latest in factory-fresh metal. For organiser Rory Heron, that format is a logical evolution that harks back to how such glittering displays of automotive eye candy originated.
“If you rewind how a concours of elegance first kicked off, in Paris, the Parisians would parade through the Champs-Élysées in their stunning bespoke carriages and then their first early cars,” he says. “It was a chance for them to show them off. I think Dubai has led that now, in the past five years in particular, where people are no longer just getting a ‘normal’ model – people are bespoking their Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and McLarens to fit their personalities. So we’re almost seeing a modern age of that concours come alive again for the first time in a long, long time.”
Heron and his team have pedigree to back up this first foray in the Gulf, having spent the past half-decade organising concours of elegance in the United Kingdom with Queen Elizabeth II’s blessing.
“We got permission from the royal household to host an annual concours of elegance at a different royal palace each year – it seemed to fit with beautiful classic cars. So for example, this year we went to Windsor Castle and celebrated her [the Queen’s] 90th birthday by having 90 of the world’s rarest classic cars. Slowly but surely, what we’ve seen is that more owners of classic cars from the Middle East get involved. They’re normally very discrete, but we started chatting to them and they said: ‘We actually really want something [in the Middle East] where we can show our cars.’
“Having been at Windsor Castle, we felt we needed a truly iconic venue that could be world-recognised in the blink of an eye. While it is quite tight on space, we felt the Burj Al Arab was the best place to go. The key was to get the most recognisable landmark as a venue, then to bring in the very best brands in the motoring world, and from outside, to build a long-term event here in Dubai.”
The impressive line-up of iconic and visually arresting cars from around the globe suggests that they’re off to a flyer.
“First of all, we’ve invited the best brands just to show their current cars, which are all fairly extraordinary,” Heron says. “So we’ve teamed up with the likes of Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes, McLaren and so on to show their current cars. Then, because we’re trying to create a Gulf Concours with a nod towards Dubai leading the way in building bespoke cars, we’re going to have two [other] areas: classic cars and modern bespokes, all owned by locals in the UAE or GCC nations. We’ve got cars coming from all over.
“But at the spine of that is the classics – we’re trying to show a journey in the history of the motor car, starting off from about the 1930s, then leading to the 1960s. We’ve got extraordinary Ferraris – the 250 GT [Competition Berlinetta Sport Speciale], that’s a very special car. That was owned by Ingrid Bergman, the Hollywood star. Bentley are flying over from the UK the Bentley 4½ litre supercharged Blower, which is very exciting. And then we’ve got a chap called Chris Goodwin who’s flying over his 7.0L McLaren Can-Am. That’s really interesting because that’s the car Bruce McLaren raced across America in the Can-Am series – and this year McLaren is bringing out a new McLaren [650S] Can-Am, which we’re going to be showing for the first time at the Gulf Concours.
“If you just love the beautiful form of a car, you can’t go much further than a Mercedes Gull-wing – they’re truly stunning. And we’re bringing a Lamborghini Miura – a lot of boys grew up with [a poster of] a Miura on their wall.”
While this first Gulf Concours is invitation-only, the plan is to expand year-on-year. And despite the elite individuals and sky-high finances required to own the cars on display at the Burj Al Arab, Heron sees concours events as bringing people together from across the spectrum to indulge in their automotive passion.
“It’s an amazing leveller, where you can meet truly extraordinary individuals,” he says. “The bigger collectors in the world – captains of industry and CEOs of the most famous businesses in the world – they’re just car enthusiasts. It transcends who you are and where you’re from. And we felt that the UAE was the real place to take this because the passion for the car is so massive.”
For more information, visit www.gulfconcours.ae
aworkman@thenational.ae
