Entries for Concours South Africa 2018 Now Open on Concours SA Website
Entries are now open for Concours South Africa 2018, to be held at Sun City on 10-12 August, 2018.
Image Supplied by Concours South Africa
Owners of classic, vintage and veteran cars can now enter their cars for this year’s event by visiting www.concourssa.com, and following the instruction on the site.
This year’s event will be the third annual Concours South Africa, and as in the previous two events, will be held at the marvellous Sun City Venue, on the lawns adjacent to the Gary Player Country Club.
Last year’s event was won by the 1989 Ferrari F40 belonging to Johannesburg’s Keith Rivers, while the very first Concours South Africa winner was a 1985 De Tomaso Pantera GT5, owned by the De Abreu family in Gaborone, Botswana.
Last year over 80 cars entered in the various categories, and this year it is expected the entry will swell to some 100 cars, all built before the cut-off period of 1990. The oldest car entered last year was a 1913 Buick entered by Johannesburg vintage and veteran specialist Brian Noik.
Participants Judging Workshop a huge success on 24 February, 2018
The Participants Judging workshop hosted by Concours South Africa at the Maslow Hotel in Sandton on Saturday, 24 February, saw a full-house attendance, and some gratifying interaction between the Concours judges and the car entrants.
The workshop was presented by Concours South Africa Chief Judge Wayne Harley, and Assistant Chief Judge Marius Malherbe. The focus of the workshop was to give participants an insight into the way cars are judged at Concours South Africa, from the perspectives of Harley and Malherbe.
“Obviously judging is subjective,” said Harley, “but I would like to make the point that in previous judging exercises where all our judges were present to judge a facsimile Concours car, we all ended up with remarkably similar scores.”
On 24 February, Harley used the example of an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint ( a late 1950s to early 1960s classic) to illustrate how a judge would work through various items on the car and arrive at a score.
Using detail close-up photographs projected on the Maslow conference hall screen, Harley picked out various points where the Alfa, had it been entered in Concours South Africa, would have lost points. And also where it would suffer no points lost, for items that were 100 per cent original, and well presented.
Malherbe stressed the importance of detailed, clean presentation, particularly in areas where a judge may or may not miss an example of grubbiness.
Owner interaction with judges was also emphasised, particularly in the areas of car provenance, where it helps judges to know a little bit about a car’s history to arrive at awarding a fair score.
Authenticity was stressed as a most valued attribute by the judges, explaining that replacing items like, for instance, original plug leads and a coil with modern equivalents was a definite no-no!
Entrant participation in the judging workshop.
In a lively discussion during the Q&A session following the formal presentation, numerous suggestions were put forward to the organisers and to the judges. Items under discussion for the 2018 event included the possibility of awarding gold, silver and bronze medals to all participants, to give entrants an idea of how much work was still needed on their cars.
Another idea was to establish a Top 10 list on the Sunday, the final day of the 2018 Concours South Africa, and to have each of these cars re-judged by the entire panel of judges in a tension-filled build up in the hours before prize giving.
2018 Entrants should include photographs and a provenance of their cars
It was also suggested by the organisers that 2018 entrants should include a detailed provenance of their cars, as well as a concise history of the car model, to assist the judges in the build-up to the competition.
“We are gratified that there has been so much interest in Concours South Africa 2018, with the actual competition still five months away. This bodes well for another brilliant event in 2018 at Sun City, on 10-12 August,” said Concours co-founder Paul Kennard.
For more information on Concours South Africa, to be held this year from 10-12 August, visit the website www.concourssouthafrica.com
