Flight of the Concours: how luxury hotels are racing to raise their curb appeal

Luxury hotels have always sought to burnish their image by parking fancy cars beside the entrance.

If you arrive at London’s Dorchester, for example, in the latest Lamborghini, the valet will take your keys and move it a maximum of five metres. No underground car park for you, sir, your shiny lime green Temerario will be left within view of the lobby (and passing buses) for all to envy. Outside The Savoy, the institution’s own Rolls Royce – registration S8VOY – has become a moveable part of the hotel’s glittering facade.

But, these days, it takes quite a lot more to truly impress the world’s most minted autophiles. That’s why many five-star hotels are taking things to the next level. International hospitality brands such as The Peninsula and Anantara have turbo-charged their association with flash motors, going so far as to host their own elite motoring events – where the value of the cars on display can surpass that of the hotel’s bricks and mortar.

Let me explain. When I visited Rome’s Piazza della Repubblica recently, home to the spectacular Anantara Palazzo Naiadi hotel, I discovered a £350 million traffic jam. There were 66 unbelievably scarce Italian exotics. Some were new-ish, such as a 2021 Pagani Huayra Roadster BC, but most were much older – from a 1993 Bugatti EB110 to a 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Sport Zagato.

These masterpieces inched their way from the front of the hotel down the Via Nazionale, with a police escort helping to clear the route towards the Anantara Concorso Roma’s staging ground in the hilltop parkland of Villa Borghese, overlooking the Eternal City.

I, and my well-heeled fellow spectators, were witnessing a concours d’elegance. The concept is nothing new, but its popularity is certainly enjoying a resurgence – evinced by the fact that this was the first to take place in Rome since 1960.

‘What is a “competition of elegance”?’ I hear you ask. The phrase was originally applied to 17th-century contests between aristocrats parading their horse-drawn carriages through Paris. It was only in the 20th century that it evolved into aesthetic competitions between the owners of prestigious motor vehicles. The first Italian ‘concorso’ was held in Turin in 1923. Rome followed three years later, exactly 100 years ago.

The night before the centennial Anantara Concorso, the hotel hosted a rooftop cock tail party for the entrants, sponsors and assorted VIPs as the cars sat in the piazza be low, each tucked under a bespoke red cover as if they were asleep. The three-day concours also featured a black-tie gala dinner in the historic Palazzo Brancaccio. We were serenaded by white-tied tenors singing Puccini’s Nessun Dorma.

The programme was La Dolce Vita made real, and culminated with the expert automotive judging panel awarding class honours and the Best in Show prize to the one-off 16-cylinder 1932 Maserati V4 Sport Zagato once owned by Pope Pius XII’s personal physician, which had returned to Rome for the first time in 90 years.

The car was acquired by the retired New York fund manager Lawrence Auriana in 1999. He keeps in the region of 100 cars, mostly valuable Italian racing models, and flies a handful of them from his home in Connecticut to events such as this.

Ferraris dominated the second half of the century’s contestants, ranging from a Ferrari 340 America Barchetta Touring that was raced by Pierre Lou is-Dreyfus (a dashing industrialist and hero of the French Resistance, who was also actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s grandfather), through to a unique 1986 Testarossa Spider that was commissioned for Fiat president and style icon Gianni Agnelli.

The Anantara concours also gave the American-born hotelier, William Heinecke – billionaire owner of Anantara and its parent, Minor Hotels – the chance to take the cover off his ‘reborn’ 1972 Lamborghini Miura SV, following a three-year in-house restoration.

This particular concours spanned 16 classes of car, based on age and body type. What makes the Anantara Concorso Roma particularly distinctive and emotive is that, unlike other concours, it’s restricted to just one nationality of construction. It gives the event a singular focus, and a level of verve and glamour I doubt any other automotive heartland – Germany, the US or even England – could pull off to the same degree. One steps into a gallery under blue skies to view a celebration of Italian craftsmanship rendered in metal, leather and glass.

‘I particularly love Italian cars,’ Mr Heinecke tells Spear’s. As soon as his company acquired the Palazzo Naiadi in 2018, thoughts turned to how the 1926 Concorso Romano delle Carrozzerie could be resurrected. ‘I wanted this concours to be unique, and I hope it will become an annual event here in Rome,’ he says. The second edition has already been confirmed for 1-4 April 2027.

‘Almost all the concours around the world are open to all types of cars, but limiting this to Italian cars will really resonate with the owners of these marques who have such pride in them.’

This may be the first Italo-centric concours of its type, yet internationally broader concours held on the lawns of high-end hostelries have been gaining popularity for some time. The longest running – the OG, if you will – is the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. Lake Como’s sumptuous Villa d’Este held its first concours in 1929; a cooperation between the hotel and the local automobile club. When demand shifted from coach-built cars to mass production at the end of the 1940s, the event was mothballed.

An example of the car that won the 1949 event, a Touring-bodied Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS that became known as the ‘Villa d’Este’, is owned by the hotel and remains on display in the grounds today. The Concorso d’Eleganza’s resurrection decades later was a stuttering affair, until BMW came along at the turn of the millennium and agreed to sponsor it.

Held on the last weekend of May, the Villa d’Este event has established itself as the concours by which all are judged. Here you will find over 50 storied automobiles, plus a handful of cutting-edge concept cars and coach built future classics.

Last year, some of the cars that featured at the Anantara Concorso also appeared here, as well as non-Italian artworks such as a 1929 Duesenberg J sports sedan by Weymann American, a 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport fastback coupé by Saoutchik, a 1949 Bentley Mk VI coupé by Pinin Farina and a 1996 McLaren F1 GTR.

A collector who often enters Villa d’Este is Sir Michael Kadoorie, Hong Kong based billionaire and owner of The Peninsula Hotels. He’s also to be found at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California; the most prestigious vintage motoring event in the western hemisphere and where, perhaps more notably than elsewhere, the new money can take on the patina of the old.

Sir Michael’s 1931 Bentley 8 Litre Gurney Nutting sports tourer won Best in Show in 2019. The Concours d’Elegance, held on Pebble Beach’s links in mid-August, has been running since 1950 and marks the climax of Monterey Car Week, but there’s another event the day before that’s become perhaps even more culturally relevant and is hosted by Kadoorie’s Carmel outpost, The Quail.

The Quail has 93 guestrooms and was best known for its golf course until 2003, when The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering first put it on the petrolhead map. Here, you’ll find classic cars of similar style to those already mentioned, but with a greater emphasis on newer supercars and hypercars, restomods and ultra limited-edition projects. There is also a Quail concours; last year’s Best in Show was a track-restricted 1996 Ferrari F50 GT1 owned by Silicon Valley executive Art Zafiropoulo, who reportedly declined a $100 million offer for the car that day.

Brands like Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsche and Lamborghini take large stands to show off their wares and entertain prospective clients. The 6,000 all-inclusive tickets for this year’s Quail sold out at £1,170 a head. Between that, the six-figure commercial stands and sponsors that include Bonhams, Rolex, Cadillac and Flexjet, one imagines it more than wipes its face.

More exclusive and invitation-only is The Peninsula Classics Best of the Best, an annual award launched in 2015 that’s bestowed upon the winner of each of the world’s most distinguished competitions. The award draws the Best in Shows from The Quail, Pebble Beach, Villa d’Este, Florida’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, Blenheim Palace’s Salon Privé, Hampton Court’s Concours of Elegance, Goodwood’s Cartier Style et Luxe and the Palm Beach Cavallino Classic, which is an all-Ferrari affair.

I strongly suspect the Anantara-winning Maserati will be in the mix at The Peninsula Paris next year. ‘He was very encouraging,’ Heinecke says, when I ask how Kadoorie responded to Anantara moving in on his turf. ‘It’s unfortunate he was unable to attend this year, but he’s promised he’ll be at the next one.’

While The Quail is a money spinner, The Peninsula’s Best of the Best award is likely a more modest earner, with just a couple of hundred invitees. In January, in Paris, Nicole Kidman was among them. What it does represent, though, is a networking opportunity par excellence for collectors and those who enable them, a fully booked hotel for the night and a chance for Sir Michael to indulge in one of his passions.

Held across more than one venue, and with around 350 guests, the Anantara Concorso Roma has steeper overheads. What it has boldly done, as well as harness its owner’s interest, is highlight its sybaritic credentials to a European and American audience. The world’s most valuable car collections are increasingly found in the US. There’s no Anantara in the New World, although many well-resourced Americans are discovering the brand on their travels through Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Mr Heinecke – Bill, to all and sundry – is a lifelong petrolhead who was the lucky recipient of a Jaguar XK120 as his first car. He is a naturalised citizen of Thailand (his family moved to Bangkok in 1963, when he was 14) and divides his collection between the US and Asia. Anantara Concorso Roma’s provisional entrants are handpicked by chief judge, classic car expert Adolfo Orsi, and invited to attend. Owners cover the cost of transporting their vehicle to the concours.

CARS by Rock-It, which is among the most trusted logistics companies, quotes £8,000 to ship a car from Los Angeles to Rome, door-to-door, or £15,000-£18,000 to fly it, which seems to be the preferred option for most owners. Accommodation and hospitality when they get there is subsidised to an extent, but not fully covered. Anantara charges from €8,000 per couple, or crew, including all subsistence, activities and entertainment.

‘It’s an expensive outing,’ notes Heinecke, ‘and in order to make it worthwhile to those people we work doubly hard to give them an experience they will hopefully write home about – not only about beautiful Italian cars, but also the Roman hospitality and the incredible food.’

Additionally, the inaugural event was sponsored by UBS and Richard Mille, but one gets the sense Bill is willing to make a short-term financial loss for the qualitative gains.

‘I’m not sure we get a quantifiable return, because the investment in an event like this is so large,’ he tells me. ‘But what it does do is provide another experience. Anantara has been built around experiences and experiential travel. So for us, it’s a natural marriage. The respect for all things Italian in design, fashion and art is well known. For me, these cars are moving art. I’ve participated in Villa d’Este, Pebble and Quail, and to bring another world-class event to the circuit is something I’m very proud of.’

Economically, it’s a similar story at the Villa d’Este. Many of these collectors might do half a dozen concours and rallies covering the USA, the UK, France and Italy each season. If they’re retired or can work remotely, what better way to spend their time?

Now there are five-star hotels outside the traditional heartlands targeting auto-enthusiasts. Many already host supercar tours, but Croatia has looked across the Adriatic to the Italian concours and thought, ‘We’ll have some of that’.

The country, it should be noted, is the headquarters of electric hypercar company Rimac, which recently teamed up with one of the most storied marques of all: Bugatti. The scenic island of Losinj is home to Cikat Bay where you’ll find the Boutique Hotel Alhambra – a 51-room refuge lauded for its gastronomy and spa facilities.

In September 2024, the first annual Concours Croatia took place here; the end point of a stirring coastal and island-hopping drive. Losinj has attracted legendary auto motive designers including Giorgetto Giugiaro and Peter Stevens, and owners of post war classic cars – such as 2025’s Best in Show winner, a Zagato-bodied 1959 Porsche 356 – plus quite a few hypercars, including a Ferrari SF90XX, Bugatti Chiron Sport, a Porsche 918 Spyder and a brace of Rimacs.

This year’s event is set for 3-6 September with entry requirements more relaxed than some of the other concours, and a weekend’s all-inclusive hospitality that is half the price of staying at the Anantara.

Handsome locations boasting exciting roads, deep horizons and timeless vistas are the ideal places to stage elite car gatherings, because luxury motors and high-end travel are so evocatively intertwined. This makes five-star hotels highly successful venues for the most prestigious of classic car events, which draw guests only too ready to splash out to admire the ultimate marvels of automotive engineering.

By Adam Hay-Nicholls