The Elegance at Hershey

By: conceptcarz.com

Modeled after the finest concours in Europe and America, The Elegance is a genteel garden party featuring the world's finest collector cars, arrayed around the classically manicured gardens of The Hotel Hershey. Approximately 75 carefully curated vehicles were on display.

The Elegance at Hershey is a three-day celebration featuring the Grand Ascent on Friday and Saturday and the Concours d'Elegance on Sunday. The Grand Ascent is a vintage hill climb where classic vehicles take on a winding, hilly road located behind the hotel. Other activities including a kick-off cocktail party, a gala dinner, and a Cars & Coffee gathering.

The Elegance at Hershey Governor's Cup winner was the 1934 Packard 1106 Twelve Runabout Speedster with coachwork by LeBaron and owned by Bob & Sandy Bahre. Just four were known to have been produced when new and all four remain extant today. The Speedster combined Packard's shortest wheelbase with its 160 horsepower V12 engine, and stunning coachwork from LeBaron of Detroit. Included was a raked vee-windshield, long hood, boattail rear end, and pontoon fenders with skirts on the rear fenders and wheel covers over the wire wheels.

The People's Choice was bestowed upon the 1929 Cord L-29 Cabriolet. Cord built 5,010 examples, including approximately 1,200 cabriolets between the 1929 introduction and the close of production on December 31, 1931. The car was to be followed by a new and improved L-30, but the Depression saw to it that it never happened.

Referred to as 'Cord Front Drive' in company literature, the car was never given a model name so the prototype's I.D. number, 'L-29,' was selected. Four factory body styles were offered: sedan, brougham, cabriolet, and phaeton (convertible sedan). The cost of closed cars started at $3,095, while convertibles started at $3,295.

The vast majority of cars at The Elegance were pre-war. One of the few post war cars on display was this 1960 Plymouth XNR Concept. The XNR was Chrysler stylist Virgil Exner's dream for a sports roadster. Naming the car after himself, he began with a modified 106.5-inch Valiant/Lancer chassis and a 170 CID 'Slant Six,' so named as it was created over a 30-degree angle within the engine bay. The chassis was shipped overseas to Turin, Italy, where Ghia's craftsmen followed Exner's designs and hand-formed the entire body of steel.

Unlike most concept cars of the era, this one was meant to be driven. Barely 43-inches high, the car was ultimately clocked at Chrysler's high-speed proving grounds in Michigan at 152 mph.

One of the few racing cars on display was the 1966 Porsche 906 Carrera 6 Racing Prototype, chassis number 134. The Porsche 906 Carrera 6 was the gull-winged successor to the 904. The car on display and an identical car were originally purchased by Dutch Volkswagen distributor Ben Pon. They were painted orange and raced as Team Holland. Gijs van Lennep campaigned this car in 16 events in 1966, winning the Grand Prix de Paris and Aspern and finishing 1st in class at the Nurburgring 1000km, in addition to many podium finishes.

Chassis number 134 is powered by a 2-liter, 230 horsepower SOHC air-cooled flat six-cylinder engine. In total, there were 65 Porsche 906 Carrera 6s produced.

The Delahaye 135 was first presented at the 1934 Paris Salon. Compared to its predecessor, the 138, it offered a slightly lower chassis that both lowered its center of gravity and lengthened its line, making it particularly desirable for coachbuilders. The 135 was also more powerful. Updated in 1937 to feature a 3.5-liter engine in various states of tune, the 135M 9or Modifie) featured either one or three carburetors for 95 horsepower or 115 horsepower.

This particular 135M Cabriolet wears coachwork by Henri Chapron of Paris. Following its completion, it is known to have remained in France where it was last registered in Paris in 1965. Shortly thereafter, it was exported to the United States.

Ferrari attacked the two-seat market with its 250GT, commonly known as the Lusso Berlinetta - 'lusso' for luxury and berlinetta describing the coupe body style. The Lusso was introduced at the Paris Auto Show in 1962 and is considered by many to be the ultimate expression of Scaglietti coachwork featuring delicate, almost feminine body sculpturing, with near perfect proportions. The smooth bodywork covers a tubular frame chassis, live axle, and 3-litre V-12 producing 250 horsepower and mated to a 4-speed gearbox.

The 1936 Lancia Astura is a short-wheelbase chassis that was built in the summer of 1936 and then delivered to Pinin Farina where it was fitted with four-seat cabriolet coachwork designed by Mario Revelli di Beaumont. The completed car was exhibited on the Pinin Farina stand at the 1936 Milan Motor Show. It boasts an early use of curved door glass with the option of movement with or without opening the vent windows for the rear-seat passengers.

Sitting in close proximity to the 1936 Lancia was a 1934 Lancia Belna Eclipse. The Eclipse, or disappearing top, was the design of George Paulin. Complex but effective, his design provided for a system of hinges and levers whereby the roof detached from the windshield frame and the lower body, move rearward, and lower into the space created when the rear deck panel was opened. The hand-operated system features counterbalanced bungee cords; later designs by Paulin for Peugeot used electric motors. Just two of the approximately four built are known to have survived.

1929 Duesenberg SJ Convertible Coupe by Bohman & Schwartz

The Duesenberg J was unabashedly advertised as 'The World's Finest Motor Car,' and the only copy used in many of the company's advertisements was simple, 'He/She drives a Duesenberg.' Among the elegant car's at this year's 'The Hershey' was this 1929 Duesenberg that has Murphy convertible coupe coachwork that was modernized and restyled in 1937 by Bohman & Schwartz of Pasadena, California. Styling changes included a full-length hood, a long flowing back body treatment, special skirted fenders, an external exhaust, and modern full-face bumpers. At the same time it was upgraded to SJ-specifications.

1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Torpedo Transformable Phaeton

It was 1925 and the fabled Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, which had been launched in 1906, was being retired. After seven years of testing, the six-cylinder Phantom chassis was introduced. The New Phantom, as it was called, received the Phantom I designation retrospectively when the Phantom II appeared on the scene in 1930. From 1926 until as late as 1931, Phantom I's were built in Springfield, Massachusetts, in addition to those in England. Of the total 3,340 Phantom I's produced, 1,241 were built stateside.

This 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Torpedo Transformable Phaeton is one of 35 Phantom I's to wear coachwork of varying styles by Hibbard & Darrin. Howard 'Dutch' Darrin designed and held a patent for the Torpedo Transformable Phaeton of this model, which features distinctive trapezoidal-shaped side windows.

1925 Locomobile 48-9 Convertible Sedan by Derham