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- Mercedes took its all-time record 10th Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours when Jim Patterson’s 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Long-Tail Special Roadster won.
- The Benz beat an all-time toughest field, with 17 strong entries, by our count.
- It was the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours and one for the record books.
No one knew what was going to happen this year.
Usually, there’s a consensus pick among the cognoscenti soon after the cars roll onto the lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
Usually the winning car is a long, low European coupe from the 1930s, with most of the length taken up by the hood, with some elegant front fenders flowing down the sides, and a small cockpit way in the back for the rich owner and a discreet companion. Problem was, this year there were about 20 of those.
So it came as something of a relief when the judges finally had the winner late in the afternoon on the 18th green at Pebble. Longtime entrant and now three-time winner Jim Patterson of Kentucky took well-deserved top honors for his 1937 Mercedes-Benz Special Roadster.
“In Kentucky, you know, we talk about winning the Derby. Well, there’s such a thing as winning the Triple Crown,” Patterson said. “And so I’ve won this Concours twice before today. This is a Triple Crown for me.”
Origin Story
The car was originally ordered from Mercedes by the Shah of Afghanistan, then was hidden away in the French embassy during WWII before making its way to the U.S. in 1953.
Patterson said the car was in great shape when he bought it at an RM auction in 2022, calling it, “almost virginal.”
“It had never been separated (from its drivetrain), never restored, and had only 13,000 miles on it.”
When he got it early last year it was complete, nothing missing. But they redid everything anyway.
“We didn’t have to order or make any parts,” he said.
As if you could go down to O’Reilly and order a fender. Ha!
The Competition
The car fit in perfectly with the formula for a Pebble winner, with flowing fenders rolling down the sides and an elegant long-tail rear end. And yet, as glorious as this one was, it was jammed into a field that included so many other previous darlings of the judges. Imagine having to pick a Best of Show from among these:
- 1937 Talbot Lago T150 C-SS Figoni et Falaschi
- 1939 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet owned by previous Pebble winner Peter Mullin and driven onto the stage by wife Merle Mullin.
- 1929 Duesenberg J Murphy Dual Cowl Phaeton owned by Rob and Jeannie Hilarides of Visalia, California.
- 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Barker Torpedo Sports, a real crowd-gatherer, with a stainless-steel hood.
- 1928 Mercedes-Benz S 680 Glaser Sports Tourer owned by John Bentley of Harrogate, UK (the car also won Loren Tyron Award).
- 1930 Mercedes-Benz 710 SS Special Roadster from the Auriga collection in Germany.
- 1932 Talbot AV105 Fox and Nicholl Vanden Plas Tourer.
- 1930 Mercedes-Benz 710 SS Special Roadster, also from the Auriga Collection in Germany and only one of three such special roadsters surviving today.
- A stellar class of Bugatti Type 57s, including Chip Connor’s 57S Atalante, a 1937 Type 57S Vandooren Cabriolet, and a 1937 Type 57SC Atalante from the Pearl Collection in Switzerland.
- A Prewar Preservation entry that was a runner-up for Best of Show, a 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Figoni Cabriolet.
And some truly spectacular Ferraris, including a 1961 Ferrari 400 Superamerica Pininfarina Coupe Aerodinamica owned by Kevin Cogan of Kentucky and a 1953 Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale Coupe; as well as some great Ferrari Competition entries like a 250 GT Scaglietti Berlinetta, 1955 225 S Vignale Coupe, and the class-winning 1957 Ferrari TRC Scaglietti Barchetta.
Any of those could have legitimately won this year. Any one of them! So let’s not hear any whining about Mercedes winning it’s 10th Best of Show in Pebble’s 72 storied years, or Bugatti winning nine times. Let’s just celebrate the fact that they’re still doing this stuff and that we can all see it.
And let’s get ready to do it all again next year. Happy Pebble to all and to all a good night.
