What does 'concours d'elegance' mean, and where did it come from?

A phrase from Paris, not a car at all

Concours d'elegance is French for competition of elegance. It did not start with cars. In 17th century France, aristocrats drove horse drawn carriages through the parks of Paris on summer weekends, each trying to outdo the next for style and finish, according to Wikipedia's account of the format. When the horse gave way to the engine, the same idea carried over. Owners lined up their cars to be judged on how they looked, not how fast they went. That is still the rule at every concours today, from Pebble Beach in California to the Oberoi Concours d'Elegance in Udaipur.

The earliest organised car version of this contest, Wikipedia records, is the Concorso d'Eleganza held at Villa d'Este on Lake Como in September 1929. A page on the coachbuilder archive Carrozzieri Italiani, which documents that first event, lists six cars entered, built by the coachbuilders Sala, Ghia, Stabilimenti Farina and Castagna. The winner was an Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A bodied by Sala, which took the Coppa d'Oro Villa d'Este, the gold cup that gave the event its early name. This was not a show of old cars kept in a shed. It was coachbuilders showing off their newest work on the latest chassis, judged for elegance the way a tailor's suit might be judged.

Lake Como falls silent, then a golf course picks up the idea

The Villa d'Este contest did not survive the end of bespoke coachbuilding after the Second World War. According to a history published by the motorcycle and lifestyle site El Solitario, the event closed and the format lay unused for decades before being relaunched in 1995. By then, the idea had already crossed the Atlantic. In 1950, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance was founded in California as an adjunct to the Pebble Beach Road Race, with thirty cars shown on 4 November that year, Wikipedia's entry on the event states. It outgrew its first site, a practice tee by the Beach Club, and moved in 1952 to the 18th green of the Pebble Beach Golf Links, where it still stands between the clubhouse and the Pacific. Pebble Beach's own site confirms the event has run since 1950.

Villa d'Este's revival kept one old habit alive that Pebble Beach never had. According to BMW Group Classic, which organises the event together with the Villa d'Este hotel, a Concorso d'Eleganza Design Award for concept cars and prototypes was launched in 2002, with BMW as its partner since 2005. It sits alongside the historic car classes, so a new concept sits on the same lawn as a 1930s original, a direct echo of 1929, when the contest was for coachbuilders' newest work, not just old cars.

Why the French name turns up in India

Indian concours borrowed both the name and the format. The Oberoi Concours d'Elegance held its second edition at The Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur from 20 to 22 February 2026, a press release on Oberoi Hotels' own site confirms. The same release notes the event was named Concours Event of the Year at the 2024 Concours Year Awards and also won Breakthrough Event of the Year at the International Historic Motoring Awards 2024. The 21 Gun Salute Concours d'Elegance and the Cartier Concours d'Elegance carry the same French name for the same reason Pebble Beach and Villa d'Este do. A concours in India judges elegance, not speed or originality of engine alone, because that is what the phrase has meant since Parisian carriages took to the park nearly three centuries ago.

Sources

• Concours d'Elegance, Wikipedia
• Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, Wikipedia
• Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, official site
• 1929 Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, Carrozzieri Italiani
• Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este history, El Solitario
• Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, BMW Group Classic
• The Oberoi Concours returns, press release, Oberoi Hotels