On Saturday March 1st 2008 the first inaugural Palm Springs Desert Classic Concours D’ Elegance was held at the beautiful O’Connell Golf Club. What a show!

First and foremost, a huge round of applause must go out to Paul and Holly Merrigan. The Merrigans’ and their staff pulled off a miracle; organizing an extraordinarily well run event in just two months time! Listen carefully and you will hear the applause! BRAVO!!!!!!!

There is so much to write about that it is difficult, at best, to put all of our thoughts into some kind of reasonable order. Significant cars were displayed, the list almost endless and if we miss some here, sorry! Ferrari number 01C; quite possibly the very first Ferrari ever built. A very rare Minerva- a true one-off convertible built by a little known Belgian Manufacturer. A Jaguar D-Type, a Porsche 904, a Zagato bodied Maserati A6G, 2 nearly perfect Ferrari Superfasts,
A 1949 Maserati A6-1500, a 1930 Franklin 147 Speedster; Tony Adamowiczs’ championship winning Dan Gurney Eagle FA car; In fact Tony was re-united with, and climbed into the office of, his championship winning Eagle after nearly 40 years. WOW!!!! A terrific BMW Isetta, a stunning and ultimately show winning Delahaye, the list goes on and on.

Orange County was well represented too. Crevier Classic Car Co. was presented with 3 awards for two of their cars. Their 1932 Lincoln KB9 Waterhouse Victoria took home best in class honors for Class 4 “American Classics” and their ’36 Packard 120 Le Baron Victoria was presented with the second place award in the same class. The Packard was also awarded “Best American Coach”

One of the greatest treats of the weekend was that four great American racecar drivers were present to judge the racecar class; Tony Adamowicz, Davey Jordon, Scooter Patrick and Rick Knoop. Who else to better judge a racecar class than bunch of “seasoned” (read, old) racecar drivers? Tony’s resume has already been written about on this site and worth another look. Scooter was a factory Porsche driver who competed in Porsche 904’s and 906’s. He also won the very last unlimited Can-Am race in 1974 at Elkhart Lake Wisconsin; driving a Mclaren M20. Rick is probably best known for his work with Jim Busby in the C2 championship winning Mazda Prototypes of 1984 and winning their class at Le Mans the same year. Rick also drove Porsche 962’s and currently campaigns a vintage Tyrell F1 car….wonder if he wants to adopt a son? Dad, I work and everything! Davey drove with other greats like Jerry Titus, Scooter, Briggs Cunningham, John Fitch etc, etc, etc! Davey also won the 1967 SCCA National championship, driving a Porsche 911s. The list of cars that Davey drove throughout his amazing career is mind boggling. It was great to have all four of them there and…. on Friday night…. being able to spend time with all of them at once during dinner was……..simply amazing. Thanks guys! A night, we will never forget!

What a great show! Paul and Holly are already working on next year’s event. If they keep this up, Pebble Beach could be in serious trouble.

O.C.C.E