THE BRIDGE CONCOURS

The Bridge is a single Saturday in mid-September on the fairways of The Bridge, a golf club in Bridgehampton, on Long Island, laid over the old Bridgehampton Race Circuit: more than three hundred cars, most of them post-war sports and competition cars of the kind that raced there or might have, set out on the grass in groups by colour. There is no judging and there are no awards, and there are no tickets; the cars are chosen, and the guests are invited.

Guests are driven in from two miles away, to keep out those who were not asked. One man came to the gate in overalls, announcing himself as “Louis with the tools to fix the cars.”

The Circuit

Bridgehampton raced on its public roads from 1915 to 1921, and again from 1949 to 1953. When New York banned racing on public roads, a permanent circuit was built in 1957, designed by Grumman engineers, on more than five hundred acres of sandy hills and dales overlooking Peconic Bay.

It held rounds of the World Sportscar Championship from 1962 to 1965 and of the Can-Am from 1966 to 1969, and NASCAR came there too. Stirling Moss called its first combination of turns the most challenging in North America, and it was at Bridgehampton that Mario Andretti met Paul Newman.

Bob Rubin, the son of a mechanic, who spent twenty-five years on Wall Street and races the ex-Phil Hill Maserati 250F and the ex-King Leopold Bugatti T59, bought the circuit in 1981 and ran it until 1998, when he began to build a golf course on it. He founded The Bridge as a golf club in 2002. The Millstone Turn survives, and so does the Chevron Bridge, with its red and blue sign; chequered flags mark each of the eighteen holes.

In 2016 Rubin, Shamin Abas and Jeffrey Einhorn, a Manhattan attorney, founded the concours, and The Bridge I was held on 22 September that year. Einhorn is the curator of the cars. Rubin’s own account of it is “like Pebble Beach, but without a broom up its arse”.

The Day

It is, in its own words, “a re-imagining of a typical concours event”. One account puts it plainly: “There are no judges no prizes, no politics, no tickets.” The cars are post-war sports and competition cars “that raced or would have been eligible to race at The Bridgehampton Race Circuit during its glory years”, more than three hundred of them each year. Owners submit them, a Selection Committee reviews the entries, and the cars are set out on the fairways in groupings of colour, which is the event’s signature.

The guests are members of the club and their guests, the guests of its brand partners, those whose cars are being shown, and collectors invited specially: some three thousand in all. The day benefits The Bridge Golf Foundation, in Harlem.

The Sunday has two gatherings of its own. Cars and Coffee at the Bridgehampton Museum is free and open to all. The Bridge at Topping Rose House is a brunch by Jean-Georges Vongerichten for five hundred guests, and is ticketed.

In 2026 The Bridge X marked ten years on Saturday 19 September, presented by Mercedes-Benz USA, as Richard Mille had presented it from 2017 to 2024. An installation, “Lines of Motion”, marked a hundred and forty years of Mercedes-Benz, with several 300 SLs and the Mercedes-AMG ONE; sixteen Ferrari Testarossas were set out across the driving range; race cars from the 1950s stood on a starting grid on Paddock Four; and a drive-in showed a cut of Rubin’s favourite car films, narrated by Rubin himself.

What to Know

It is held on a Saturday in mid-September: in 2027, The Bridge XI, on 18 September, with Topping Rose House and Cars and Coffee on Sunday 19 September. Owners may submit cars from April 2027.

There are no tickets. Entry is by invitation, as a member’s guest, a partner’s guest, an exhibitor or an invited collector. Membership of the golf club costs $1.2 million. The way into the weekend open to the public is the Sunday at Topping Rose House, at $275 and limited to five hundred.

Smart casual: a jacket without a tie, proper trousers and shoes, and no logos. Nothing is published, and the founder sets the day against the formality of Pebble Beach.

The Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch stops at Bridgehampton, at Maple Lane and Butter Lane; the Cannonball runs only in summer. Stay at Topping Rose House, in Bridgehampton, where the Sunday brunch is held.

The mistake is to drive to the gate. Guests are taken in by car from two miles away.

The Court

The Bridge is not the Court’s own. An invitation for the Saturday and places at Topping Rose House on the Sunday are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in Bridgehampton, and the table afterward. Later in the month the Court’s own Classic Car Outing leaves from Bridgehampton.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.