CONCOURS OF ELEGANCE

The Concours of Elegance is three days of rare cars at Hampton Court Palace, on the Thames twelve miles south-west of central London, from a Friday to a Sunday in early September: a field of rare cars, many never before seen in Britain, eighty of them in 2026, shown in the palace gardens, with the clubs’ cars, the Jaguars and the young owners beside them. It began at Windsor Castle in 2012, and its patron is Prince Michael of Kent.

Best of Show is not chosen by judges. The owners choose it, each with one vote, for any car but their own.

The Royal Palaces

The first was held at Windsor Castle from 7 to 9 September 2012, with the full permission of the Queen, to mark her Diamond Jubilee: sixty cars in the Upper Ward, ground never normally open to the public, and more than eight hundred club cars across the weekend. Prince Charles, as he then was, showed his 1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante. The owners were asked which car they would “Most Like To Drive Home In”, and chose Jon Shirley’s 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta, which had won at Pebble Beach four years before.

It moved from palace to palace. In 2013 it was at St James’s, and Prince Michael drove the 1933 Napier-Railton, a twenty-four litre special, there himself from the Royal Mews. It came to Hampton Court in 2014, went to Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh in 2015, where a 1903 Mercedes Simplex 60HP won, and to Windsor again in 2016. Since 2017 it has been at Hampton Court.

The palace was once the home of Henry VIII, with sixty acres of gardens and the country’s oldest hedge maze. Cardinal Wolsey bought the estate in 1514, the King enlarged it, and Wren rebuilt the south and east ranges for William and Mary.

In 2020 it was held under Covid rules, with morning and afternoon tickets, and a class for children’s cars appeared, for the first time at any concours. The show of 2022 was its tenth anniversary and the Queen’s seventieth year on the throne, and it showed one car from each year of her reign.

The Three Days

The Friday is the Owners’ and VIP Day. The cars make their Grand Arrival at ten, their owners are interviewed on the Concours Stage through the late morning, and two awards are given in the early afternoon. On the Saturday the Club Trophy parade is at a quarter past ten, and the class awards are presented from three to five. On the Sunday the cars of the Thirty Under 30 parade in the morning, Best in Show is presented at a quarter to three, and at a quarter to five comes the Grand Depart, when the concours cars leave the palace.

Owners apply through the event’s car curators, and an independent steering committee suggests cars and selects among them. The classes go by decade, from before the 1920s to the 1980s, and by kind, Ferrari and Formula 1 among them. Beside them run the Club Trophy, judged among cars put forward by British clubs, the Jaguar Trophy, the Thirty Under 30, for cars of the last century kept by owners aged thirty or under, and a Junior Concours of half-scale cars.

Best of Show is a silver Pegasus, made by the sculptor Robert Rattray over six months, and presented by Prince Michael at the Concours Celebration Dinner.

In 2026, from 4 to 6 September, the weather was fair throughout. Best in Show went to a 1928 Mercedes-Benz 710 SSK, delivered to Argentina, raced there by Julio Berndt and his brother-in-law Carlos Zatuszek, and kept racing in South America until 1958; it was the car’s first concours in Britain. The Chairman’s Award went to a 1930 Bentley Speed Six tourer by Gill, and the Club Trophy to Barry Coupe’s 1969 Alfa Romeo 1750 GTV.

What to Know

It runs from a Friday to a Sunday on the first weekend of September. In 2027 it runs from 3 to 5 September.

A Friday ticket costs £112.20 for 2027, and a Saturday or Sunday £71.40. A Members Ticket for the weekend days, at £102, opens a private enclosure and parking on Hampton Court Green. The Club Concours hospitality, on all three days, is a private marquee with a Charles Heidsieck reception, a three-course lunch with wines and afternoon tea; its price for 2027 is yet to be published. Picnics are allowed in the gardens, and Fortnum’s will supply one.

The event asks for smart casual, and calls the day “a great occasion to dress up”; its style guide with Turnbull & Asser suggests a driving jacket, cravats and pocket squares. A lounge suit, one level above what is asked.

Trains run from Waterloo in thirty-five minutes, and the palace is a five-minute walk from Hampton Court station, across the bridge. In summer boats come up the river from Westminster in three and a half hours. There is no hotel of the event’s own: stay in London.

The mistake is to leave early on the Sunday. Best in Show is presented at a quarter to three, and the Grand Depart, when the cars drive out of the palace, follows at a quarter to five.

The Court

The Concours of Elegance is not the Court’s own. Places in the Club Concours marquee on the Friday, the owners’ day, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in London, and the table afterward. Salon Privé is at Blenheim the same week.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.