A Concours of Chrome & Steel At Newport’s Elegant Chateau

NEWPORT, R.I. — The founder of Fleet Aviation, John Dalsheim, strolled the main tent of the William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. Concours d’Elegance last weekend and shook his head incredulously.

“These are beautiful cars, but in the end, they can’t fly,” Mr. Dalsheim, an avid aviator, whose business provides private chartered planes at a moment’s notice, said.

After an hour or so of viewing the entries, the year-round Manhattan and Newport summer resident admitted he wouldn’t mind being stuck in even the longest summer traffic jam if he were sitting behind the wheel of these automobiles, which included a 1934 Duesenberg La Grande Dual Cowl Phaeton, and a 1955 Ferrari 375 American Coupe Speciale.

A Greenwich, Conn. native, Malcolm S. Pray Jr., brought home the Best in Show award for his 1937 Bugatti Type 57C.

The presence of models worthy of the Pebble Beach, Calif., Concours (indeed, many) at the inaugural show was a testament to the lure of displaying cars on the grand lawn of Newport’s Chateau-sur-Mer. The event was a full-scale Concours, displaying 140 cars in 15 classes, from American Pre-War Classic to Open-Air Post-War German Sport. It was also an indication of how, up to now, the northeast has lacked a world-class competition of this type.

The show’s sponsor, the Preservation Society of Newport County, will use the proceeds from the weekend to help restore Chateau-sur-Mer, one of 11 mansions and historic properties — seven of them National Historic Landmarks—the society opens to the public and maintains.

Restoring cars and mansions are complementary pursuits, according to the executive director of the society, Trudy Coxe. “Whether on wheels or on a stone foundation, the work of historic preservation is essential to sustaining our awareness of values and heritage,” Ms. Coxe said.

Racing legends Sir Stirling Moss and Dan Gurney received the Vanderbilt Award for Lifetime Achievement during the $850-aplate Legends Dinner at the Breakers on Friday evening. Mr. Gurney brought to the show the winning Birdcage Maserati that he and Sir Stirling drove at the Nürburgring in 1961, as well as the Gurney Eagle with which he won at the LeMansclass race at Belgium’s Spa track in the same period.

On Saturday night, the Preservation Society held another dinner dance, this one at the Vanderbilt family’s Marble House, with 700 guests in attendance.

The show’s namesake, William K. Vanderbilt, like most men of his family, was an accomplished sailor and yachtsman in Newport. But “Willie K.” also staged one of the very first auto races in America through the streets of Newport in 1901.

The Concours d’Elegance has its origins on the Riviera in the first decade of the 20th century. In the early years, the car’s driver would get behind the wheel, but later glamorous and fashionable Parisian women replaced them, and the event became a celebration of the high fashion of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. In the 1930s, fashion designers designed the interiors of the cars to coordinate with their outfits.

Newport has always had a different kind of glamour than Cannes or Monte Carlo. The style on view last weekend in this Gilded Age resort town was preppy and understated. Everyone at the Concours had his own personal favorites. Models from the roaring 1920s turned heads with mother-of-pearl dashboards and trunks built to fit full china and silver services.

The most notable entries included a 1965 Porsche 356SC coupe, owned by Peter Boss of Narragansett, R.I.; a 1939 Delahaye 135 M roadster, owned by Mr. Pray, and a 1929 Du-Pont G 4-door, owned by Reynolds duPont Jr. of Fishers Island, N.Y.

The two entries from New York City were a 1936 Lagonda Rapide LG-45 sports coupe, owned by an opthamologist at New York University Medical Center, Dr. Richard Lisman, and a 1957 Ferrari 250 Tour de France, owned by the chief executive of Apollo Investment Corp., John Hannan.

Other showstoppers included a 1935 Auburn 851 Phaeton convertible touring car, owned by Bill and Ann Sheffer of Westport, Conn., and a 1941 Cadillac sedan owned by socialite Kate Gubelmann of Palm Beach, Fla. The local favorite was a pink 1956 Fiat beach car, complete with rattan seats and white canvas roof that its owner, Ruth Hale Buchanan, has driven to her Newport beach club, Bailey’s, for decades.