Jonny LiebermanWriterNov 21, 2025
duOJvk0g
“What’s it going to take to get you out to the Audrain?” So asked Donald Osborne, the Italian-speaking, bowtie-wearing, opera-singing master of ceremonies and spiritual advisor to one of the best car events on the calendar, the Audrain Concours d’Elegance held in the gilded age mecca of Newport, Rhode Island.
Osborne and I were both in Miami for MODA, RM Southeby’s excellent car show founded out of spite two years ago after Hagerty’s Broad Arrow auction house poached nearly 30 of RM’s employees. The idea was to stick it to Amelia Island, another world-class car event that Hagerty purchased outright. The Audrain folks had been asking me to come and hang since its founding back in 2019. I looked at Osborne and blurted, “Make me a judge?” He flashed his mega smile, waved a hand over me, and said, “You’re a judge. See you in Newport.”
xW1HWyQ
Into the Deep End
The first time I attended Pebble Beach car week—the granddaddy of all decadent fancy-pants car happenings—I was green. This was well before we were all addicted to social media, and I knew nothing and had no idea things like this took place. I didn’t even know what to wear, naïvely assuming the big show on Sunday was just another cars and coffee kind of event. I believe I showed up in shorts and a T-shirt. One thing I did notice, however, was that a friend of mine—Pulitzer Prize–winning automotive journalist Dan Neil—was an honorary judge. That seemed pretty cool. Then a brainworm from my undefeated ego burrowed its way into my frontal lobe as the thought popped into my head, “Why not me?”
The Audrain isn’t Pebble. Talk to people like Jay Leno, and they’ll tell you the Audrain is better than Pebble. I know this because during The Gathering that takes place at Doris Duke’s incredible Newport “summer cottage” called Rough Point—Audrain’s answer to The Quail—Spike’s Car Radio, a podcast I’m on with Seinfeld writer Spike Feresten (inventor of “No soup for you!”) did a live show with special guest Leno. He made the point that Audrain Motor Week reminds him of Pebble Beach 15 years ago. Leno—who owns, to quote him, “a ridiculous house” in Newport—is an essential and integral part of the Audrain. To wit, the mayor via a proclamation deemed October 2, 2025, to be Jay Leno Day.
m37whMRA
How to Judge?
So here I was serving as a judge during the big show on Sunday. I was seated at the judges’ breakfast enjoying coffee, eggs, and sausage when head judge Phil Neff asked, “Is there anyone here who hasn’t judged a concours?” No hands went up, including mine. OK, so I’d never judged a fancy-schmancy Sunday like the Audrain. But I’ve judged the parody car show, Concours d’LeMons, so many times that I’ve not only forgotten how many, but I’ve sworn to never do it again. Should I have raised my hand? Who knows, but like, it’s cars, ain’t it? How hard could it be? Remember, my ego is undefeated. Why not me?”
Neff and his team paired me up with Ray Evernham, the NASCAR hall of fame crew chief that won everything and often with Jeff Gordon. Evernham and I hit it off immediately as we realized we’d both raced at Pikes Peak. We were tasked with handing out a special prize, the Sporting Choice Award. Basically, we were looking for the most sporting car on the lawn. I asked head judge Neff for some clarification. Did he want us to focus more on sports cars, or actual race cars? “Yes,” he replied, smiling. This meant we were responsible for looking at and judging every car present that had either two doors or no doors. That’s well more than 100 cars. And we had two hours to do it in.
Sporting our judge hats, medallions, clipboards, No. 2 pencils, and navy blazers, Evernham and I stepped onto the field and quickly came up with a plan. Like at all concours, the cars are broken up into classes. We’d simply look at each class, figure out one car that “popped,” and write down our top four or five favorites. Our instructions were not to get bogged down with typical nitpicky minutiae that plagues modern car judging. Who cares if the trunk lining is wrong? In fact, don’t even open the trunk.”
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
LH8pKK0A
Still Not Simple
Two of the classes made me realize quickly the answer to my earlier “Why not me?” fantasy. Class D consisted of Ford GT40 road cars, six near as I could tell being identical-quality GT40 Mk1 homologation specials. For real, all looked equally awesome, and without checking carb-bolt alignment (as we were instructed not to do), I have no idea how you’d pick a winner. We couldn’t. Put another way, the people judging Class D had to be real and serious subject matter experts to make this call. The same was true with Class A, the prewar Alfa Romeo division, which consisted of six mind-blowingly excellent 8Cs. I couldn’t even begin to tell you why the car that won its class did so, though the burgundy beauty did go on to win Best of Show, and somehow that part totally makes sense.
In any case, we still came up with a short list of our favorites, though sacrifices had to be made. There was a Lamborghini 3500 GTZ Zagato Coupe that blew my mind because I’d never heard of it before (turns out it’s one of two ever built, and the other one is being purposely kept away from the public). However, I realized that as novel and “Wow!” as I thought the Zagato Lambo was, it wasn’t winning the Sporting Choice Award. For his part, Evernham was super into an exceedingly rare Allard JR that raced at the 1952 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, I quickly discovered he owns three Allards, and that we ought to strike this JR off our list. Sweet car, however. Fitted with a Jaguar C-Type body to comply with new Le Mans regulations but still powered by a 5.3-liter Cadillac V-8, it remains the most successful of the seven Allard JRs built.
gtFaw97g
The Hardest Choice
For us, the Sporting Choice Award came down to two cars: an oligarchical 1938 Talbot-Lago T150 C Lago Figoni et Falaschi Teardrop Coupe and a light green 1951 Cisitalia 202SC Pinin Farina Cabriolet. The Talbot “Goutte d’Eau” certainly had the provenance to win. Aside from being the only long-wheelbase T150 C ever built (15 regular wheelbase versions were made), this particular car holds a racing record that will never be broken: Built in 1938, this T150 C won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa in 1948, making it the oldest car to ever win a grand prix race. Imagine a 10-year-old car winning an F1 race today? That alone was almost enough to swing us. But not quite.”
Perhaps it was the Talbot-Lago’s massive sunroof, or dark paint job, or the fact that by lengthening the car, the normally tidy Figoni et Falaschi shape looked a bit bloated, or maybe the Cisitalia was just that good. From my co-judge, Evernham: “The Cisitalia just spoke to me. The combination of color, stance, and placement of chrome created a picture in my mind of driving it down a beautiful coastline wearing my vintage Wayfarers.”
Exactly right. Look, there’s a good reason the Museum of Modern Art in New York includes a Cisitalia 202 (coupe) in its permanent collection: These little sports cars are just that spectacular. And somehow on this day, in that color, and with its top dropped, it was the car we just kept coming back to while fantasizing about driving it around the Newport coast. The 202SC simply tickled our fancy the hardest, and we gave it the Sporting Choice Award.
So you see kids, being a judge is as (not as) easy as that. But I hope I made Mr. Osborne proud enough.”
Article Title:
Concours d’Elegance: A Judge’s Perspective on the Audrain Motor Week of 2026
Main Keyword:
Audrain Concours d’Elegance (2026)
Secondary Related Keywords:
Audrain Motor Week, automotive concours, Pebble Beach, classic car judging, Jay Leno, Ray Evernham, RM Sotheby’s, Concours d’LeMons, Sporting Choice Award, classic car valuation, collector cars, classic car market, restoration costs, classic car insurance, vintage automobiles.
High CPC Keywords:
classic car insurance, collector cars, restoration costs, classic car valuation, vintage automobiles, RM Sotheby’s.
Target Audience:
High-intent users
