CONCORSO DI MOTO, 2015

If you're not an old car buff, you'd be forgiven not knowing the status of this show in the collector auto universe.  Villa d'Este is the car show Pebble Beach winners would absolutely kill to be invited to. The show inevitably oozes wealth, given the value of the cars on show, but as the Saturday concours is invite-only (and hey, they let us moto-heads swing by too), there's no crowding at all. The cars are driven to Villa Erba the next day, so it's a win-win, as the general public can see the same cars beside the same lake for a very modest admission - 15 euros.  Compare that to $350 for day-of-show tix to stand packed like a sardine at Pebble. 

That's the car story, anyway, although it's sweet to see every one of them driven around the grounds of Villa Erba during the afternoon, when they're 'presented' to the grandstand audience and described by the multi-lingual and oh so genteel master of ceremonies, Simon Kidston. There's a bi-annual auction too, and this year RM (who've sold 25% to Sotheby's) had a Ferrari-heavy lineup under its own awning.  BMW fills the remaining space with themed displays of cars and bikes, this year a mix of mostly '70s bikes and cars - 2002, R90S, R75/5, 3.0 CS.  

Plus a full display of M1 'art cars' with color schemes by famous artists - Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Alexander Calder, and of course Andy Warhol, whose finger-painted M1 might just be the most valuable car in the world, if taken seriously as a work of art.  It's the only one of the cars actually painted by the artist, and not merely 'designed by'... Andy's perverse handling of the paint (check out the video) is hilarious, and makes the car an actual painting, in contrast to his usual work, which was created by assistants using silkscreens. 

On the two-wheeled front, the cruciform motorcycle exhibit had 5 themes: 'The Establishment' (bikes from the 'Teens and 20s), 'Gentleman's Ride' (luxury bikes from the '30s), 'Experiments in the '50s', 'Connoisseur's Choice' (70s luxury bikes), and 'The Heroes' (of the '70s bike boom). There was also an un-judged lineup of Isle of Man TT winners, from the BMW RS255 which Georg Meier won the '39 race, to the BMW S100RR which won in 2014.  The most-represented marque this year was, believe it or not, Harley-Davidson, with 3 machines ranging from a beautifully restored 1913 single-speed chain-drive twin, to an original-paint 1971 Shovelhead Electra Glide in AMF white, and an immaculate 1977 XLCR cafe racer.  [For a full list of the participating bikes, follow this link]

As usual, super-rare bikes comprised the bulk of entries, making the judging process difficult as ever.  We seem to have arrived at a happy core of judges as of last year, with the evergreen Carlo Perelli as Chief Judge, journalists/authors Mick Duckworth, Francois-Marie Dumas, and myself, plus Edgar Heinrich, head of motorcycle design at BMW.  This year we had surprise celeb judge Orlando Bloom, who proved an enthusiastic and welcome addition to our panel; he professed to be a bit overawed by the years of moto-experience at the table, but he's been on motorcycles since around age 12.  The addition of a non-industry judge to our deliberations provides a fresh point of view, a welcome circumstance for us ultra-geeks who are perhaps too deeply interested in details and provenance, and forget the 'wow that's cool' factor. 

Orlando's feedback about the process was identical to mine, as related by coordinator of the Moto Concorso, journalist/author Stefan Knittel.  He felt the most interesting and rewarding part of the whole event was our discussion around the judge's table, in which perspectives of judges from 5 different countries and 4 different decades clash, merge, emerge, clash again, and eventually arrive at a conclusion for each of the 5 classes.  And then there was the Best in Show discussion, especially heated this year, as the question of 'elegance' was debated, until Carlo declared eventually that this was a 'Concorso di Moto', not a 'Concorso di Eleganza', as with the cars.  This freed us to award Best in Show to a bright yellow 1973 Münch TTS-E, which might not be the picture of elegance, but is damned impressive, and happened to fit within the 'Spirit of the Seventies' theme of the whole event this year.  Tidy. 

Big thanks to BMW for their gracious hospitality, and for stewarding such a fantastic event.