Amelia Island Concours with the Kid

Awhile back, I did a blog about the Kid and my trip to the pits in the middle of the night at the Rolex24. I mentioned, at the end of that blog, "Wait until our trip to the Amelia Island Concours D'Elegance next month." Well, that was way back in March so I figured it was about time to tell that story.

I had gotten the approval of the Kid's mom for him to attend this event with me way back in January and every time I spoke to the Kid, I told him to make sure he was well behaved so he wouldn't get in trouble and have this opportunity yanked out from under him. He did behave and we were able to attend this outstanding event. At the time, I still lived in Sl-Ocala so I drove over and picked him up and we headed up to just north of Jacksonville, about a two hour drive. On this drive, I got to hear some pretty interesting jokes from the Kid. It was funny, he was reluctant to tell me a dirty joke. I told him, 'Dude, I am your Uncle, not your Dad. I won't get mad, just don't do anything stupid when you are around me.' and he didn't. We also swapped a few stories, some about this blog and some about growing up.

A little about this Concours. It was started in 1995 by a gentleman, Bill Warner and the proceeds of it benefit the North Florida Hospice, based out of Jacksonville. Something like $1.2 million so far! $100,000 per year! Fantastic!! It is held on the 17th and 18th fairways of the golf course of the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. Pretty swanky place.

This was to be my third trip to the Concours. Once, around 1998 0r 99 and in 2003. The following two images are of a couple of the cars I saw those years.

This is a 1959 Firebird, built in 1952, to show what the future of automobiles would look like, at least to Harley Earle and his designers. The ironic part of this car is the greenhouse effect those roofs had. The interior would get to hot to sit inside, due to heat gain.

This was in '03 and is an image of the Cadillac 16. It was a super car and looked absolutely stunning. This was before the hoons started dubbing out regular issue Chevrolet Caprices and those 22's on that car are gorgeous. Maybe if the General had built this one, its fortunes might be a little different today. Nah, probably not, to much group think going on over there.

My agreement with the Kid was that I would buy our tickets, $50 each, but he had to buy lunch. Of course, he has his Mother's sense of fiscal responsibility so he bought me a $1.00 double cheeseburger from Mickey D's on the way in. We arrived about one in the afternoon, passed by the shuttle bus and drove up to park on the right of way, across from the golf course. As we were walking by the other cars, we saw some pretty cool ones, including an old Mercedes ragtop I lusted after. The other thing we saw alot of was people leaving with their tickets on those ribbons you have around your neck, such as I have on in my profile photo. It is about a two hour walk around and you have seen the best of the best. A quick thinking johnjohn stopped two of the guys leaving and offered fifty bucks for their tickets. They thought about it a second and agreed to sell them to us. We all got in for $25 each and were all the happier for it. the Kid thought that was pretty cool. I enjoyed it also.

Every year the Concours has a featured driver and this year it was Parnelli Jones. He raced in the old Trans Am series and in the Baja series.

The image above is of one of those $25 tickets, now hanging, safely, on one of the walls of the Taj Mahal in the Birthplace of Speed.

This image is of the Kid with Parnelli's 69 or 70 Trans Am racing Mustang.

This one is of me in front of his vintage Baja Bronco.

The featured mark this year was Cars of the Trans Am series and a bunch were invited and showed up. The one in front here is the car championed by Mark Donahue for Penske Racing, back in the day. Behind it, if you click on the image, you will see cool Mustangs, Camaros, Dodge Darts, the lime green Challenger championed by Sam Posey. It was awesome. I remember when this series was racing and couldn't get enough of it on one of those three channels we got back then.

This is John Fitch's interesting take on a late 50's Corvette. In the background of this shot you can see the rear of the Corvette in the next photo and just to the passenger side of that orange #2 you can will be able to barely make out this Corvette.

And this is an interesting take on a late 70's Corvette. In the background, you can see a Hudson Hornet racecar, think "Doc" in the movie "Car's"

After looking at all these race cars, the Kid and I stopped by to pick up a Diet Coke for me and a dog and water for him. $12 bucks. Yeah, the Kid paid but he was grimacing the whole time.

We then went to look at the classics. This is a 1938 Darracq/Talbot-Lago originally owned by the Count and Countess deCollivia of Portugal. I know this because I read it in the July issue of Classic Motorsport on their coverage of this same event. They published same shot, same angle, same 1/2 the ID board in front, but without that dude looking inside. It is so sweet, access to multi million dollar vintage automobiles, with no velvet ropes surrounding them.

I am ashamed to note that I do not remember what this car is. My memory is of a custom bodied Bentley but I do remember it is BIG and European.

I absolutely love this vintage Bentley Drop Top. oleragtop just doesn't fit this car.

This is an overall view of the 17th fairway. It was loaded with cool, vintage, and rare cars and trucks.

This is the 18th fairway. There are a bunch of cars down at the other end. To the left in this image, is a view area where they actually drove the cars up to the awards stand to receive their awards. It was pretty damn cool, once again.

There were a ton of other cars we saw, a factory Porsche 4 door based on an old 928, several old 1910 era wooden bodied Rolls Royce's the Kid had never seen before and didn't even know of their existence.

And I identified, correctly, the car in the following image, lifted from John Long Photography on the net, as a Tatra, from a distance of about 50 feet. the Kid could not believe I knew what it was. I enjoyed that, also. Jay Leno has one in his garage.

This was the first time the Kid's mom and dad had let him go with me to an event "unchaperoned" and it was a blast. the Kid, while still doing silly 15 year old stuff, is, overall, a great one and will go far in life. Proud to be able to spend some quality time with him.