In New Jersey, a new concours to appear in Thomas Edison’s backyard Photo by Zak Baudoin, courtesy Edison Concours d’Elegance. So what do you do next once you’ve won just about every major concours event possible? If you’re Joseph Cassini, well, you just start a new concours, and he will do exactly that next October in New Jersey. There aren’t too many concours events that one of the cars owned by Cassini, a retired judge, and his wife Margie hasn’t won or taken a significant award. They’ve won Pebble Beach twice – in 2004 with a 1938 Horch 853A Erdmann & Rossi Sport Cabriolet and in 2013 with a 1934 Packard 1108 Twelve Convertible Victoria by Dietrich (and very nearly won it in 2012 to boot) – the Concours of America at least twice, Greenwich, Glenmoor, Radnor Hunt, Ault Park, the New York City Concours, and even the short-lived Stan Hywet Concours. But Cassini’s drive to start a new concours event doesn’t appear to come from any dissatisfaction with the current concours landscape or intent to add a few more trophies to his awards case. Rather, he said he sees a shortage of concours events in the tri-state area. “There’s nothing in New Jersey, and Greenwich is a different kind of concours than what we’re planning,” Cassini said. For the first year, Cassini said he’s planning a show that leans more toward pre-war cars with a focus on the elegant coachbuilt-era cars. Still, he said what he’s envisioning isn’t necessarily concours traditional. “We want something unique,” he said. “We don’t want to smash the mold, but maybe we’ll tweak it a little.” He also said the Edison Concours will succeed where other New York City-area concours events have failed because of the location. “The National Park Service has agreed to let us use the Edison grounds (that is, Glenmont, located in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey) free of charge, so we have no line item cost there, and the Park Service also has a small army of park rangers that can help us put on the event as volunteers,” he said. Glenmont, where Edison lived most of his life, also houses Edison’s laboratory, where he pioneered motion pictures and audio recording, and his garage, where a number of his cars – including his Ford Model T and his Locomobile converted from steam to electric power – are still housed. Cassini, along with the concours’s chief judge, Sally Perkins, and the rest of the event’s organizers, are currently selecting cars and featured classes and hope to have those finalized by early next year. The inaugural Edison Concours d’Elegance will take place the weekend of October 16-18. For more information, visit EdisonConcours.org. from Hemmings Daily - News for the collector car enthusiast ift.tt/1vB5mOF Sourced by CA DMV registration services online. Renew your registration online in only ten minutes. No DMV, no lines, no hassles, and no appointments needed. Visit Quik, Click, pay, and print your registration from home.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 14:06:53 +0000