Fantasy Island ; Florida's First Coast is the perfect first concours.(Brief Article)

Now that the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance weekend is over, I can admit it: I had never attended a concours before. Perhaps it was the four tortuous semesters of French in college, but the Gallic words had always scared me off. Little did I know that in Florida, concours d'elegance just means ``big, fun car show.''

This year, there were more than 200 cars and motorcycles crowd-ing the grounds of the Ritz-Carlton for judging on March 11, not to mention the dozens being auctioned by RM Classic Cars the day before. The Concours saw an amusingly diverse field, from brass-era Pierce-Arrows (the featured marque) to the obvious '50s Ferraris to unlikely candidates such as Dennis Morgan's 1972 Datsun 510 BRE Bobby Allison race car. With classes ranging from rare Woodies to European custom coach-work, motorcycles to muscle cars, you'd have to be allergic to sunshine not to have enjoyed yourself.

For the autograph hound, notable celebrities in attendance included the Concours' honorary chairman John Surtees, the only man to have won world championships in both Grand Prix motorcycle and automobile competition; NASCAR legend Junior Johnson, reunited with his 1963 Chevy 427 ``mystery motor''-powered Impala; and Le Mans champion Hurley Haywood, acting as a judge.

It fell to me to select the AutoWeek Duckling Award, for ``the car that turned into a swan before our eyes.'' While at first indication I imagined this to involve downing many martinis, truth be told, the task was far easier: Ronald ...