2026 Featured Classes
Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Featured Marques & Classes
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance has made history time and again, often hosting first-ever or even once-in-a-lifetime gatherings of cars and pairing the world’s greatest designers with their creations. Now, as the event approaches its 75th celebration on August 16, 2026, it plans to revisit some of these iconic gatherings while hosting a wide range of features and new classes.
Ferrari, which has a long history at Pebble Beach, will be the primary featured marque on this occasion, with a special focus on overall Le Mans winners and NART competition cars, and Vignale will be the featured coachbuilder. New offerings include special classes for Early American Speedsters, Classic Streamliners, and Japanese Motorsports.
Ferrari
A Ferrari first appeared at Pebble Beach in 1951: Gentleman Jim Kimberly, heir to the Kimberly-Clark Kleenex fortune, showed his 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta at the Concours and went on to compete in the Road Races. While in third place on lap 20 of the feature race, he skidded on oil and flipped the car—but he emerged unharmed and received a kiss for his efforts from his date, movie star Ginger Rogers. In the intervening years, over 900 Ferraris have appeared here. Ferrari became the first ongoing postwar featured marque at the Concours beginning in 1973, and we often host two or three Ferrari classes. On this occasion, we will be showcasing Ferrari’s overall Le Mans winners, NART competition cars, and Vignale-bodied road cars.
Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale
Born in 1913 as the fourth of seven children, Alfredo Vignale first found work as a panel beater at the age of eleven. After having worked with Pinin Farina and later Stabilimenti Farina, he started his own carrozzeria in 1948. The defining moment came in 1950 when Vignale began his famous cooperation with another Stabilimenti alum, Giovanni Michelotti, a multi-talented and prolific sports car designer who could create distinctive and beautiful styles at the drop of a hat. Giovanni designed the cars, and Alfredo built them. What followed would secure their enduring legacy: a seemingly unending stream of Ferrari, Lancia, FIAT 8V, Maserati, and many other Italian chassis that received their golden touch. Today, these rare cars are regarded as a quintessential distillation of exquisite Italian metal shaping. They are the coachbuilt embodiment of 1950s la dolce vita: sleek, smart and breathtaking.
Early American Speedsters (Pre-World War I)
In the tumultuous years leading up to World War I, a handful of American automakers offered exciting models that stirred the souls of early sporting motorists. The Speedster was an exciting, fast, bare-bones iteration of the newly emerging horseless carriage. Minimalist in guise, speedsters generally featured a powerful engine, a rudimentary hood, lightweight fenders, two bucket seats, a cylindrical fuel tank, and a pair of spare tires. Except for their vestigial fenders, they resembled road and track racers of the era, like the Indy 500-winning Marmon Wasp. Although more than a century has passed, evocative names like Stutz Bearcat and Mercer Raceabout still resonate with car enthusiasts. Our class will display several of the best-known American Speedsters along with several little-known but exciting competitors.
The Birth of the Streamliner
The latter half of the 1930s was a time of unrest and upheaval in automotive design—yet one of great creativity and originality as the new science of aerodynamics rose to the fore and the old upright and angular three-box car designs were forced to bite the dust. Some experimented with genuine windswept teardrop forms tested in early wind tunnels. Others were caught up in the spirit of the age and its catchword: streamlining. Late 1930s consumers could purchase streamlined toasters, refrigerators, pencil sharpeners . . . and cars. As the design studios of car manufacturers and coachbuilders experimented with the new and fascinating shapes of these “streamliners,” they created astonishing automobiles that remain some of the most extravagant and breathtaking machines ever conceived. With their flowing fenders, sloping grilles and fastback rear ends, the streamliners were a short-lived ode to a Flash Gordon future where the sky quite literally was the limit. The 2026 Concours will mark a timely celebration of that.
Pebble Beach Road Racing Greats
Amidst its 75th celebration, the 2026 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will pay tribute to its historic roots in road racing. The first Pebble Beach Road Race took place in November 1950, and the first Pebble Beach Concours was held in tandem with it; Concours cars were shown and judged in a field near the tennis courts and then paraded down the start-finish straight of the racecourse. Racing continued in Del Monte Forest through 1956, and a multitude of top racers and constructors took part, including Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, Richie Ginther, Bill Pollack and Phil Remington, along with celebrities such as Jackie Cooper. Ultimately the winding, tree-lined course proved too dangerous for increasing speeds, so a purpose-built circuit was carved from a nearby dry lake—“Laguna Seca.” Our celebration will showcase the evolution of sporting cars that raced in the forest in the early 1950s, pairing top models from auto manufacturers with some of the most iconic one-off specials.
Japanese Motorsports: The Rising Sun at Le Mans
Le Mans has long been considered the most challenging endurance contest. Marques like Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Ford and Porsche have all enhanced their reputations with impressive victories there. Understandably, Japanese automakers were eager to show that their cars could compete in that grueling international endurance race. Toyota, Mazda and Nissan entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 1990s. Mazda convincingly won the Sarthe Classic in 1991 with the unconventional Mazda 787B Rotary. Not to be outdone, Toyota won Le Mans five years in a row, from 2018 to 2022, fielding a convincing variety of Hybrid racing car configurations. And in 1990, when a Nissan won the pole position, it qualified six seconds faster than the nearest Porsche! Nissan continued to battle Jaguar and Porsche that year until mechanical issues sidelined the Japanese entry. More recently, Honda ran cars at Le Mans from 1994 to 2006, winning the GT2 Class in 1995. We’ll present a fine array of Le Mans cars from a selection of Japanese manufacturers.