★ Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este

01Pourquoi c'est important

Villa d'Este is the European counterweight to Pebble Beach, and the two are the only concours whose Best of Show materially changes how a car is described afterward. The entry list is small — around fifty cars against Pebble Beach's two hundred — which makes selection itself the honor, and the classes lean hard toward coachbuilt European bodies, so it is the natural home for the Italian and French carrozzeria tradition that surrounds it geographically.

The event also carries an unusual amount of design-industry weight for its size. The Concept Cars and Prototypes class puts working manufacturer studios in front of an audience of collectors and journalists in a setting with no motor-show noise, and the design press treats the weekend as a fixture. In our reading, the reason Villa d'Este holds its position despite being far smaller and less commercial than Monterey is that it is the one place where the historic and the contemporary sides of car design are shown to the same people on the same lawn, in a landscape that flatters both.

02La semaine environnante

Cernobbio is a small town and the Concorso saturates it. Via Regina, the lakeshore road between Como and Cernobbio, is congested all weekend and the ferry piers are busy; the roads above the lake fill with entered cars being exercised, which is free to watch and among the better sights of the weekend. Como itself, ten minutes away, absorbs most of the visiting crowd and its restaurants and lakeside bars are the practical evening center. Villa Erba's grounds open to the public on the Sunday and the auction preview runs there for a day or two beforehand.

The weekend sits in the busiest stretch of the Lake Como year, when Milan is still working and the lake has warmed enough for the villas and gardens to open. Villa del Balbianello and Villa Carlotta, both public, are at their best in the same weeks. Anyone combining the Concorso with the lake should expect Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio to be crowded on the Sunday regardless of the car event.

03Quand arriver

Arrive Friday. The Friday is arrival and press day and has little public program, but it is the last calm evening in Cernobbio and the only easy day to move around the lake by boat. Saturday belongs to whichever site your access allows, Sunday is Villa Erba, and Monday is the day to leave or the day to see the lake properly once the traffic has gone. Anyone attending only the public day can reasonably come from Milan on the Sunday morning and return that night, but the drive back after the awards is slow.

04Où séjourner

Cernobbio itself is the shortest walk and the smallest supply: Grand Hotel Villa d'Este is the anchor and, for the Saturday, functionally the access point, and the neighboring Villa Flori and Sheraton sit along the same shore toward Como. Como town is the sensible base for anyone without Villa d'Este access — a real town with a cathedral, restaurants that are open on a Sunday night, a rail connection to Milan and a fifteen-minute drive or boat ride to Cernobbio.

Farther up the lake, Laglio, Moltrasio and Torno are quiet and beautiful and add a slow lakeside drive to every journey; the western shore road is single-lane in places and cannot be hurried. Milan, an hour away by train to Como and then a short transfer, is the fallback when the lake sells out, and many attendees do exactly that.

05Accès et hospitalité

Access is deliberately tiered. The Saturday at Villa d'Este is not sold as a general ticket: the hotel offers packages tied to residency and there are invited guests of the organizers and sponsoring brands, which is why the lawn stays quiet. The Sunday at Villa Erba is a public ticketed show with online sale in advance and, in normal years, availability at the gate. Entering a car is by application to a selection committee, and the field is small enough that most applications are declined.

The hotel's own events page states that several packages are offered, ranging from access at Villa d'Este itself to what it describes as a more informal option at Villa Erba. We did not verify current prices for any tier and quote none. Auction bidder registration is handled separately by the auction house.

06Où se déroule l'activité sociale

The public center of gravity is Villa Erba's park on the Sunday, where the crowd, the club displays and the food stands are, and the lakeside promenade in Cernobbio, which is open to anyone. On the Saturday, activity is concentrated inside the Villa d'Este park and terrace and on the hotel's floating pool, none of it public. In Como, Piazza Cavour and the lakefront bars, the streets around the Duomo, and the Funicolare up to Brunate carry the weekend's overflow. Passenger ferries between Como, Cernobbio and the mid-lake towns run all weekend and are the pleasantest way to move.

07Comment s'y rendre

08Informations pratiques

09Historique

The first Concorso was staged on 1 September 1929 at Villa d'Este, when the hotel and the surrounding lakeside villas were a summer address for northern Italian society and the concours d'elegance was a live commercial format: coachbuilders showed new bodies to potential clients, and the elegance being judged was current, not historic. The event ran intermittently through the 1930s and then lapsed for decades.

It was revived in 1995 as a historic-car event, and the modern shape — Saturday at the hotel, Sunday at Villa Erba — settled during the 2000s. BMW Group Classic came in as co-organizer in 2009, bringing the resources of a manufacturer archive and a marketing budget while leaving the judging and the small scale intact. The 2020 edition was cancelled during the pandemic and the 2021 edition was displaced to October before the event returned to its May slot. The most consequential change over the past two decades has been the widening of the classes: postwar sports racing cars and 1970s design are now shown beside the prewar coachwork that the concours was built on.

10Qui s'y trouve

Collectors of European coachbuilt cars and their families; manufacturer design directors and studio teams showing concepts; historians, judges and marque registrars; specialist restorers, mostly Italian and German; auction house specialists and consignors; design and motoring press; and, on the Sunday, a large Italian and Swiss public that treats Villa Erba as a day out. The Saturday audience is small, older and heavily European; the Sunday audience is broad.