19 Mar Concours South Africa – Update

The second Concours South Africa will be held at Sun City alongside the Gary Player Country Club from August 3-6. Among the judges for this year’s event are FMM curator Wayne Harley, who will be joined by two international motoring aficionados with South African links, namely Chris Routledge and Robert Coucher.

Chris is the CEO of one of the world’s best-known classic car auction houses, Coys of London, and has in recent years also become known to a far wider audience thanks to his work as a presenter on BBC TV’s The Classic Car Show, which has also been shown in SA. He has a wealth of experiencing in judging concours d’elegance events at locations all over the world. His link with SA goes back to 2008 when he began a close relationship with the Franschhoek Motor Museum. “Chris is a sounding board for many of the decisions we make at FMM,” says Wayne, who is Chief Judge, a role he fulfilled admirably at last year’s inaugural event. “What I really admire about Chris is that he is not only one of the world’s great car experts, but an academic as well. He interacts with the owners of some of the greatest car collections in the world.”

Wayne points out that Chris’ presence at Concours South Africa 2017 will impart a wealth of knowledge to local enthusiasts who are entering their cars at this prestige event. “Rather than playing the role of a celebrity, Chris will be able to guide our local collectors on world trends in terms of what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong as far as their classic car collections are concerned.”

UK-based motoring journalist Robert also boasts a wealth of judging experience: he has been a judge at the famous Pebble Beach concours in Monterey, California, the Salon Prive in London, and currently sits on the Concours d’Elegance Selection Committee for the Windsor event in the United Kingdom. What many don’t know is that he cut his motoring teeth in South Africa, as he was born and bred in the mother city, Cape Town.

After completing his schooling at Bishops, he obtained a BA degree at the University of Cape Town before doing military training at Voortrekkerhoogte. He later worked for advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather it what was then its Transvaal office. Robert emigrated to the UK in the late 1980s, and became a journalist and then editor of Your Classic magazine, then edited Thoroughbred & Classic Cars in which he detailed his adventures in cars with a South African provenance in the “our cars” section of the magazine. In 2004, Robert became the founding editor Octane, for whom he now occupies the post of International Editor. Robert still has classic cars at the family home in Constantia and is toying with idea of a drive from Cape Town to the Reef to take up judging duties at Concours SA.

This year the organisers are planning for 150 entries across a more tightly-defined array of categories and discussions have already been held with Wayne to finalise the details, which will be posted on the event’s website www.concourssa.co.za. This year’s event will start with an international conference on value in the classic car market to be held on Thursday 3 August. Final judging will be held on Sunday 6 August, when the winners will be announced at a glamorous prize giving.

For more information on How to enter Concours South Africa 2017, logon to www.concourssa.co.za or e-mail organiser Paul Kennard on paul@concourssa.co.za or call him on 082 851 3300. MM