Fairfield County Concours dElegance

Fairfield Concours to Showcase 1939/47 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Vutotal

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Auctions, Events

The star car at this year's Fairfield Concours d'Elegance will wears the Spirit of Ecstasy on her hood and no less ecstatic design all along her body. The 1939/47 Rolls-Royce Phantom III "Vutotal" Cabriolet by Labourdette, now in the John Rich Museum collection, started off as a standard Phantom III designed by Henry Royce. It was re-envisioned by coachbuilder Hooper and Co. in 1938 with a Sedanca de Ville for the chassis, then showed off in Europe before being tweaked for the U.S. market.

When that show car ended up in the Parisian studio of Henri Labourdette in the forties, he threw out everything but the running gear and rebodied the car gold-plating-and-brass-adorned aerodynamic bodywork that swooped back into a boattail. He also got rid of anything that identified it as a Rolls, save for its mascot and a couple of interior trim pieces. The final detail: the Vutotal windscreen, a thick slice of glass that appears to support itself. The conversion cost $44,000 at a time when the average price of a home was about $4,000.

Elsewhere on the Concours docket, featured judging classes will include Porsche, Bugatti, Period Hot Rods and Custom Cars from 1948 – 1964, there'll be regional vintage club gatherings, an auction conducted by Bonhams, and photographer Jesse Alexander will be the featured artist. The Barn Find category is a new one this year and is still accepting submissions to go with dusty, rusted hulks including the 1949 Willys Panel Wagon and 1961 AC Greyhound. The seventh annual Fairfield Concours opens its lawn on Saturday, September 11, 2010.

Gallery: Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance

Gallery: Fairfield County Concours celebrates Jesse Alexander

Tags: coachbuilder, coachbuilding, Concours, Concours delegance, connecticut, fairfield concours delegance, Fairfield County Concours dElegance, henri labourdette, rolls-royce, rolls-royce phantom iii, rolls-royce phantom iii vutotal

Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance to Accept Barn Finds

by Jeremy Korzeniewski (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Events, Books

Classic Chevrolet Corvette barn find – Click above to enlarge

Happen to know where to locate an appropriately dusty old collectible car? If so, we suggest you get your extraction gear ready as the Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance has just announced that it is adding a Barn Find category to its event scheduled to take place September 12, 2010.

Any appropriate vehicle is eligible to enter, but the organizers and judges are looking for something specific. Explains Tom Cotter, author of several books on the subject such as The Cobra in the Barn and The Hemi in the Barn, that would be "a vehicle that has been previously unknown, or known and unattainable, or discovered through obscure means; all with a great story."

Only 20 vehicles will be accepted and the deadline for entry currently sits at July 1st. Granted, that's not a lot of time to get a vehicle ready to be shown, but the good news is the event calls for machines that are in the exact condition as found, as exemplified by the classic Chevrolet Corvette (which is slated to be the subject of Cotter's next book, The Corvette in the Barn) seen above.

[Source: The Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance]

Tags: barn find, Barn Finds, classic car, classic cars, corvette, fairfield concours delegance, fairfield county, Fairfield County Concours dElegance