The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (PVGP) and its presenting sponsor, the Greater Pittsburgh Automobile Dealers Association, (GPADA) presented a record $410,000 check to the PVGP Charities.

The presentation took place on Thursday, February 14, 2019 at the “Dancing with the Cars” party – the opening preview of the Pittsburgh International Auto Show at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The check represents the funds raised by the PVGP throughout 2018, combined with the proceeds from the GPADA’s Dancing with the Cars party that night.

“This was the 7th time in the last 8 years that we were able to set a new record for fundraising and the 11th time in the last 14 years.” said Dan DelBianco, Executive Director of the PVGP “we are proud of our growing success and we are so appreciative that the GPADA’s Foundation holds this event and donates the proceeds to our charity partners.

John Putzier, CEO of the GPADA said “our partnership with the PVGP has turned out to be a win-win-win for the GPADA’s Foundation, the PVGP and for the charities. Together we can do so much good by combining the two biggest automotive events in Western PA to generate funds for autism and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

Bernie and Wayne where invited to assist Stuart Sobek, the Founder of the upcoming Las Vegas Concours d' Elegeance and Vance Walker,  the LVCE Managing Director, in some of the planning and logistics for their first time event.  Sometimes getting an experienced set of eyes on a new event is a good idea and the guys in Las Vegas have all the trappings needed to host a truly stellar concours.

Before we delve into the details, there's a few things you should know like when is it and what is the story behind the cool art deco logo.

The Helene Award will be presented each year to deserving innovators in the automotive industry for outstanding achievements in the design, development and future of the automobile.

The Concours happens on  Saturday, October 26, 2019, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm  at the Dragon Ridge Country Club. which is about a 20 minute drive from the Bellagio host hotel for the Concours events.

Much of our time was helping develop the field layout, shuttle stops locations, trailer parking locations and discussing how to plan for traffic flow and staging.

Dragon Ridge Country Club has a bit of a Scottish Highlands feel to it.  It's located in the MacDonald Highlands, which are a series of highly affluent residential neighborhoods in Henderson, Nevada in the foothills of Black Mountain. The neighborhood is part of the Las Vegas Valley and it sits on the edges of the McCullough Mountains and overlooks much of Henderson and Greater Las Vegas including the Las Vegas Strip.

Dragonridge Country Club is one of the highest points of Greater Las Vegas. Guard-gated, it is  more than 170 acres of rolling hills overlooking the Las Vegas skyline. It's quite a sight to behold and promises to be an amazing location for a Concours.

Take a peek at the slideshow below and check out some of the initial planning that is being worked on!

via Hilton Head Monthly. By Rebecca Hamilton, 30 October 2018

When he first got involved in Concours, Ianuario was an employee of BMW Manufacturing, responsible for running the Zentrum, BMW’s museum in Greer. He used his connections to get BMW involved in the annual Hilton Head event.

“Paul was instrumental in obtaining BMW as a founding sponsor of the event,” said Carolyn Vanagel, president of the Hilton Head Island Concours d’Elegance & Motoring Festival. 

Ianuario — who has been collecting cars for 50 years — will showcase four cars from his eclectic collection, which includes cars from 1908 to 1972. Festivalgoers will be wowed by his 1908 Cadillac Double Tulip Touring, the first American automobile to win the prestigious Dewar Trophy. His 1908 Cadillac Double Tulip bodied Victoria Touring is the only one known to exist today.

He’s also showing a 1910 Chalmers Detroit. Only manufactured for two years, the model won 89 major competitions, including the 1909 Indiana Cup and the 1910 Glidden Tour. Collectors say that fewer than a dozen of the cars still exist today.

The third car, a 1912 Hudson “Mile A-Minute” speedster, is believed to be the first car built in America advertised as a “purpose-built race car.” Ianuario’s speedster is one of only five original remaining today; in 2011, he drove the car onto the racetrack at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to mark the track’s centennial.

The final car Ianuario will display is a 1929 Packard 645 Dietrich Bodied Individual Custom Convertible Coupe, a one-off design by the incomparable Raymond Dietrich. It was built especially for Lloyd W. Smith, the CEO of what is now Chase National Bank. The Packard had a radio installed in it at the time of its manufacture, making it one of the one of the first automobiles with this accessory; it’s one of the earliest “superheterodyne” radios known to exist. This Packard’s custom body has never been removed from its chassis and it has only 31,000 miles.

By Bernard Martin

When Wayne and I started this Concours LLC endeavor, we agreed on several groundrules:

• Any event we product has to be fun for those attending
• Any event we produce has to be profitable for our vendors and sponsors
• Any event we produce has to be welcoming to the media and bloggers and make them feel part of the team
• Any event we product should appear to happen seamlessly, no matter how complex the logistics are behind the scenes. 
  

When we get emails, like this one from Ford Heacock below, and phone calls from some folks we highly respect, and see very kind things written in articles about our events, we know that that the six hours of planning was more important than the six minute solution we could have tossed in and hoped for the best.

At our events we operate on keeping everything simple.  It's called K.I.S.S. by most. We don't ask a volunteer or judge to do anything more than a couple things that they can check off on the fingers of one hand. Otherwise people will  forget things if its too complicated.  This especially holds true for any first year event: You don't know what you don't know. 

At the end of the day, it really takes a team of great people to make a succesful event.  It takes every person on the team jumping in to lend a hand. 

We certainly had an "all hands on deck" moment last May.  We experienced the second highest amount of rainfall since the "1000 Year Flood" that closed the Greenbrier for a few months after the June 2016 high water mark destroyed so much of the facility.

We had watched the weather closely on Saturday and decided that we should be clear of rain during the Concours on Sunday.  We made the call at 2pm on Saturday afternoon. We would not need to implement our "rain plan" that would have required moving cars into the building by late Saturday afternoon.

Sunday was indeed beautiful, albeit slightly overcast, with only a few raindrops at the beginning of the Concours. Perfect weather for the photographers actually. What we had failed to pay close attention to was the severe amount of overnight rain.  I recall Wayne calling me as I was finishing some showfield marking about 10pm at night on Saturday.  The rain was coming down in buckets.  As I walked back to the golf cart for the last time, I told him we where finally ready for tomorrow and I was not going to make it to the Gala but was going to take a hot shower, have a glass of wine and get some sleep.

We could still handle that easily and but needed to take care of the other half of of the showfield classes.

We still needed a place to put five more judged classes.  Fortunately, the golf pro suggested the idea of putting cars in front of the main entrance to The Greenbrier.  We where very fortunate to have originally planned to use the front entrance for our show.  We pulled out and dusted off the very original plans that called for putting some iconic 20-30's era cars right in the middle of the roundabout and the brass cars under the roof.  We had a plan. We could park all the classes and have a show.

But how do we notify everyone?  It came down to the effort of the judges.  What an incredible group of judges Paul Ianuario assembled.  Each group called their class, told them where to go and when to unload.  The Volunteer hosts who had been to other car shows really pulled out the stops and made if happen.  OODA loops!

It really does take a lot of people to make an event success.  You've got to have a team and a that team you have to trust to do their jobs to the best of their own discretion. 

It's the people that mean alot to us. It's the people that should mean alot to your and your efforts doing a car event.

Written by Keith Martin, May 7, 2018

During the Cold War, a top-secret fallout shelter designed to house 1,100 people (every member of the U.S. Congress and one aide per politician) during a nuclear war was constructed under The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV.

This past Sunday, for the first time, The Greenbrier’s bunker became the home for a variety of sports and racing cars, including a 1957 Ferrari 500 TRC and a 1972 McLaren M8F CanAm.

The Greenbrier is a “Grand Hotel” in the traditional sense. It has 710 rooms set on 11,000 acres in West Virginia. It was founded in 1778, and is known for its hot sulfur springs and their supposed curative powers.

This was the first-ever Greenbrier Concours d’Elegance, which is the brainchild of long-time concours and vintage event organizers Bernie Martin, Paul Ianuario and Wayne Long.

A first event of this scale always has to contend with a few unexpected twists and turns, but this one had to fight the weather for two days. Torrential rains of a tropical nature swept the area on Saturday and Sunday. The organizers quickly formulated a “Plan B” and then a “Plan C” to ensure that the event continued.

By 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, organizers decided to move the concours off of the flooded golf course and to the Greenbrier Hotel. About 70 of the cars were arrayed on the oval entrance to the hotel, and cars that were more sensitive to the weather were moved directly into the bunker.

The 112,544-square-foot bunker was built between 1958 and 1961, and it is burrowed 720 feet into the hillside under the Greenbrier Hotel’s West Virginia Wing. I’m sure that the designers never pictured a parade of gorgeous collector cars rolling into their bunker.

I was privileged to be the emcee of the Greenbrier Concours.

I arrived on Thursday, and met good friends and SCM contributors Andy Reid and Larry Prinz in the hotel casino (sports coats required).

The next day on the tour, I was the navigator for Wayne Long as he drove a Panoz Esperante in a spirited fashion on the lovely backroads of West Virginia. I’d never been in a Panoz before, and it felt like a cross between a Miata on steroids and a Viper that had been forced to wear a coat and a tie.

Saturday was Car Clubs on the Showfield day. The turnout was light due to the intermittent rains, but I found a variety of cars to examine, including a supercharged Lotus Elise and a pair of extremely original cars, a Triumph GT6 and a Mercedes 230S.
Automotive historian and SCM contributor Ken Gross was there as a judge, with his wife Trish, and we spent time talking about his participation in the upcoming SCM 30th Anniversary tour.

“I haven’t driven an Alfa Giulietta Veloce since I went on the California Mille 20 years ago,” Ken remarked. I told him he’d have five to choose from on the tour.

Despite playing cat and mouse with rain squalls all day Sunday, the clouds broke and there was bright sunshine for the awards ceremony. Best in Class was awarded in eleven classes, ranging from Brass Era cars to Vipers.

Best of Show was awarded to a spectacular 1933 Swallow Sidecar (Jaguar) SS 1 Fixed Head Coupe owned by Carl and Marcia Baxter, of Huntingdon, PA. It is one of six known to survive, and was restored to a spectacular level.

The Greenbrier Concours d’Elegance put the Dodge Viper under the spotlight and recognized it as a contemporary classic. I moderated a panel discussion that included Roy Sjoberg, who is known as “The Father of the Viper.” The panel agreed that it was unlikely we would ever see a naturally aspirated two-seat super car again.

The Greenbrier has the elements necessary to become a significant concours. The location is spectacular. The event is partner/spouse friendly, with a host of activities on site from glass blowing to cooking classes. The organizers have a great deal of experience to draw on. And even in this first year, the curated quality of the cars was top-rate.

I look forward to returning next year.

What does it take to become a judge? What should you know about Concours Judging?  Paul Ianuario discusses judging at a Concours.

By: Mike Eppinger | May 9, 2018, via Old Cars Weekly

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – The Greenbrier Concours d’Elegance wrapped up its inaugural edition on Sunday, May 8, handing Carl Baxter’s 1934 Swallow Sidecar (Jaguar) SS1 Saloon its Best in Show trophy in front of the iconic front circle at America’s Resort, The Greenbrier.

The rare automobile that took home the Best in Show honors is one of six known to survive with all of its original running gear. Its interior features the Lyons-designed Sunburst door upholstery that replicated the archway leading into the Lyon’s original Swallow factory.

The unique trophy given to the winner, designed on The Greenbrier property by Virtu Glass, wrapped up a weekend full of events

The opening day on Friday, May 4, featured 40 cars participating in The Summit drive. Drivers took their cars to the top of the mountain at The Summit at The Greenbrier Sporting Club for lunch and then traversed scenic West Virginia backroads, testing the power and precision of their vehicles along the way. Saturday’s Car Club Day featured nearly 100 cars scattered throughout The Greenbrier’s famous golf courses, as spectators milled around looking at their favorites.

That evening, car owners, sponsors and guests listened attended mingled while listening to entertainment and watching the Kentucky Derby at the Charitable Gala. Money was raised to support to important charitable initiatives, the Mountaineer Autism Project and the Antique Automobile Club of America Library and Research Center.

A rare overnight storm dropped five inches or rain and flooded the golf courses on Sunday, rendering the original plan of holding the Concours d’Elegance on the same showfield impossible. Organizers quickly came together and implemented an entirely new blueprint to hold the event in front of the hotel on the paved front circle and inside the declassified nuclear bunker that is housed on property.

Less than two hours after scrapping the original plan, nearly 100 cars were spread throughout the two new locations, and the move proved to be a good one, providing a spectacular backdrop for photos as well as easy access for shelter during spotty rain showers throughout the day.

“Overall, it was a fantastic weekend,” said Show Director Wayne Long. “Mother Nature provided us with some obstacles along the way, but we were able to find positive solutions. The move to the front circle proved to be a blessing in disguise, and I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from car owners and patrons who came out to enjoy the weekend.”

At the end of the weekend, 11 class champions were crowned in addition to the Best of Show winner. Those champions are listed below.

Plans are already being made for The 2019 Greenbrier Concours d’Elegance, and officials are excited about the possibilities of growing the event for years to come. “We really couldn’t have asked for a better start, but it’s just the beginning,” said Long. “We proved we could do it, we learned some lessons and we’re incredibly excited about the future. We expect many who participated this year to return, and we’re excited about bringing some new car enthusiasts to this amazing property, as well.”

Four main sponsors were critical to the success of the Concours – Astorg Auto,Foreign Cars Italia, Grand Home Furnishings and Mountaineer Automotive.

By Andy Reid, In Concours,  May 12, 2018

Last year, Paul Ianuario told me about a new concours event happening at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. While I was a bit skeptical about yet another concours being added to an already crowed collector car calendar, I had been to the Greenbrier and thought it would make for a great location for such an event.

Though initially planned for 2017, a number of issues put off the inaugural concours until May 5-6 of this year.

Though some might see it as being a year late, the extra time actually allowed the organizers to put on a true world-class show despite some issues with weather (think lots of rain).

The field comprised everything from brass era classics to the newest of categories, a 25-year anniversary celebration of the Dodge Viper. The Vipers were well received and included the original test mule as well as the Viper concept car.

The other classes at the Greenbrier Concours were also well filled with scores of top-caliber cars.  The post-war European sports car class included such cars as a 1964 Porsche 901, a 1961 Triumph Italia, a 1961 Side-Latch Jaguar E-Type coupe, and a stunning 1956 Austin-Healey 100M. The racing car class had a number of amazing cars, among them a 1957 Ferrari 500-TRC, an amazing 1972 McLaren M8F Can Am car, a factory 1972 BMW CSL FIA Group 2 car, and a 1965 Cooper T-75.

Full classics were well represented as well, standouts being a 1928 Isotta Fraschini 8A SS, a 1928 Auburn 8-115 Speedster, and a beautiful 1936 Rolls Royce Phantom III.

The top honor of Best in Show went to a sinister-looking 1935 SS1 Saloon. It was a crowd favorite and deserved the award due to its rarity, presence, and presentation.
One of the nice things about this concours was the ability to display cars inside the Greenbrier’s vault.

The vault was a secret location during the Cold War where Congress could have been housed in the event of a nuclear war. For years, the location was a national secret but these days you can take a tour of the facility. The formerly secret location offered the space and safety from the elements needed to properly show the race car, exotic car, and preservation class cars.

Another neat thing about the location is that this turns out to be a very spouse friendly concours. The Greenbrier resort offers too many activities to list with everything from a spa to classes in glass blowing to horseback riding and even an on-site off-road driving class. This is in addition to the many restaurants and shopping opportunities. There is even a casino in the basement.

Listen To Wayne’s podcast by Clicking on the button above, or use your mobile podcast App on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or Stitcher

Wayne Long is life-long car guy whose love for cars started at the early age of 2. He would accompany his family to the SCCA races to support his Uncle who raced a Bug-eye Sprite and later a Fiat OSCA. As Wayne entered the teenage years he quenched his thirst for competition by racing Motocross.

By the time Wayne finished college, and started working as a Civil Engineer, he had switched from motorcycles to cars and began Autocrossing. Wayne spent 21 years practicing Engineering before he finally got his opportunity to enter the automotive industry. Opening Mid-Atlantic Sports Cars 10 years ago, Wayne and his childhood friends, Rick and David Biafora, chased their dream.

Since becoming a full-time automotive junkie Wayne has become a regular on the national auction circuit buying investment cars for his high-end clients. In addition, Wayne has become a Concours judge supporting events such as the Cortile at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix as well as the Hilton Head Concours d’Elegance and he is the Executive Director of the new Greenbrier Concours d’Eleganc

Listen To Bernie’s podcast by Clicking on the button above, or use your mobile podcast App on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or Stitcher.

Bernie Martin is the Founder and President of Rapid Production Marketing in Pittsburgh. It’s a branding and consulting agency that develops strategies and tactical implementation.

A long time resident of Pittsburgh, Bernie has combines his passion for cars and in 2009 created The Cortile in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix week. The Cortile takes place at the Bob O’Conner Gold Course at Shenley Park. It is a unique car show as it is one of the few events during the race weekend managed by the PVGP Association. Most of the other car marque shows are managed by the individual car clubs.

As the Managing Director of the event Bernie and his team bring a wide range of Italian marque cars to this very special show with this year’s highlight being Alfa Romeo.