The incongruities of a car show & "concours", ..and we wonder why we bother Options

[1970 Neun vierzehn]

At a recent PCA car celebration and (alleged) concours, the awards were based on participant voting. I imagined that to consist of presentation, cleanliness, and popularity. I had no expectations of recognition, although I did spend the better part of two days preparing the car.

The somewhat irritating aspect of the event was the resultant awards presented.
The bad: in a field consisting of a least a dozen 356s, including a couple of normal 356 Bs, the "judges" conferred the "slowest car award" to a 1976 914 2.0 . I'm not that familier with 356 performance figures but I'd be hard pressed to believe a 1958 356 B Normal coupe would be faster than a 2.0 914 of any vintage.
The good: that aforementioned 1976 914 DID win a very deserved award in the standard "concours" judging. It was all OEM as far as I could tell and was a past PCA Parade Preservation class overall winner (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clap56.gif)

The real annoyance, however, was the two awards given to a (remember this is a PORSCHE Club event) a car (keep in mind the 914-not-a-real-Porsche controversy) that was a Beck 550 spyder with a VW engine. Granted, it was well done, and I am sure fun to drive in the right venue, but, just what qualifies it as a Porsche?

I suppose with the relatively "mass market" approach that corporate Porsche is pursuing of late, I shouldn't be surprised at the general casual approach that car show organizers need to take to attract uninformed and mildly interested participants.

Paul

[larryM]

damn few PCA judges have any clue about 914's - originality is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is if they can find a smudge of dirt or dust

- PCA Concours is all about CLEAN and ONLY about CLEAN

fyi

[SixerJ]

I've always thought the PCGB in the UK was largely the same. I joined the owners club when I bought my 911 in 1996 and was frankly shocked at the snobbery of the club generally (especially to teeners & lesser degree water pumpers)

My previous experience was the Triumph club where they used to run Concours De Tat (the most crap, hanging rusted out car - which isn't hard to achieve in a Triumph) right along side the proper concours. Frankly the tat was far more entertaining!

A few years in to Porsche ownership I was persuaded to become a regional organiser, each region has an annual street concours, which, in my region was more about the most lovely looking thing on the night than pure originality

Being young, many of my friends had VWs and a couple of them had teeners (I was smitten with their charms by this point) who I persuaded to come down.

One of them had a friend of a friend of a friend who had been building a GT clone that was just finished, he brought it to the show.

Judging was done by a small group members (not me) who truly loved all thing Porsche and not just 911s. Judging came down to a decision between a 928, 911 and the GT. The GT won, much to the owners surprise. At this point mutiny broke out amongst many of the members, complaints made that it was not a real Porsche & worse a conversion etc.

Even the principal of the Porsche dealership (hosting the evening) pulled me to one side and reassured me that GT was an exceptional car and was a deserving winner.

I'm happy to report that I have very little to do with the club (still too snobbish to my liking) and when the 911 was restored I did a deal with the restorer and acquired his black 914 (got to have something to play with)

I now have a mint early 911S, daily driver 914 & a real 6 project waiting to be started in the garage & the little 1.7 914 turns more heads in London than the 911 ever does.

I have one positive thing to say about the PCA. They do the most welcoming and best LeMans Saturday night BBQ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/drunk.gif) and knocks PCGBs into the dust

Also Porsche UK have embraced the heritage fully, every dealership has at least one loaned older model sitting amongst the new cars. What's more, my local dealership (same one as above) has currently a 914 sitting in there

Stuff concours, Porsche snobbery & viva the revolution (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)