Unusual Cars On The Lawn At Pebble Beach

Attending the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance offers a chance to see some wonderful cars you might never come across. There truly is something for everyone, not just multi-million dollar stunners. Year after year we run across at least one car we’ve never heard of or seen before. Personally I have an affinity for pre-war cars, but not all the time. As a certifiable car nut, here are a few of the unusual cars which turned my head over the years on the lawn at Pebble Beach.

How do you not smile?  What a face! Not the typical automotive front end, interesting but different. Early Renaults were big, bold and in this case quite fabulous.

If you thought the front was unusual, the rear, though the boat tail design is not a-typical, looks like two designers literally attacked the car from opposite ends. This 1926 Renault 40CV Labourdette Skiff has all the ooh-la-la of typical French design, if all of it was thrown at one car. (Much like the modern Pagani, in my opinion, too much.)

When I first spied these twin oval windows on the Pebble Beach Tour, I had to find this car and see it up close. Unusual design features such as this peak my interest. Almost always there is some custom aspect to it, then my mind races to who was it for? (Have I mentioned as a kid I used to read Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Mercedes-Benz section of Hemmings, for details on royalty and important people who owned the cars?)  The unique twin oval side windows on this 1915 Pierce-Arrow Model 38 Town Car are not a feature found on the average sedans or town car. This very special car was built by Kimball for Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, the man who founded the Vanderbilt Cup Races. Pierce-Arrows were one of the luxury cars of the time, used by the fabulously wealthy to ride around in style.

Enough with the bulbous and extravagant, on to the race car which does not look like a race car.

This car had me a hello, the Vignale body seemed familiar, but this wasn’t a Ferrari… This is a 1952 Cunningham C-3 Coupe bodied by Vignale. I still haven’t wrapped my head around hiring a coachbuilder to build a body similar to another one for another marque, but this is just me.

Some cars are made for color splits. Your eyes can’t help but trace each body panel individually. This is the third C-Vignale and the only one thought to have this particular paint scheme. It is the only Vignale bodied C-3 actually used for competition. It was raced but the Cunningham team in 1953. Prior to the restoration seen here at the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance by a new owner, it was in the Petersen Automotive Museum collection. As of January 2016 it has yet another owner, as it was sold at the RM|Sotheby’s Arizona Auction for $1,210,000.

Surely there is a car for everyone on the lawn, these were a few which continue to drive the track in my head. Cars are infinitely fascinating. When we look back in time it is amazing the breadth of styles man created to trod along on four wheels.