This year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance (officially now referred to as Amelia) has crowned its two best in show vehicles. The event features a traditional Best in Show award for road cars as well as race cars called the Concours de Sport. The winner of the Concour d’Elegance award went to a 1935 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne, and the Concour de Sport award went to the Le Mans-winning 1964 Ferrari 250 LM. Both the cars are quite interesting for different reasons.
The reasons why Voisin is interesting are clear just by looking at it. The C-25 line was launched in 1934, and the Aerodyne was one of three variants. Like other Voisins, the Aerodyne featured a bold Art Deco design inside and out. It also featured a massive power retractable hardtop that would slide back with a semi-circle roofline. Although Voisin reportedly built over 10,000 cars during the 1920s and 1930s, fewer than 150 survive, and only 4 of the six C-25 Aerodyne built survive. This as well as the Pebble Beach-winning example are owned by the Mullins of the Mullin Automotive Museum.
For Ferrari, it’s a mighty badass of a race car. It might sound a bit strange to say this about a mid-century Ferrari, but it was not promoted by the factory. Instead, it was run by the North American Race Team (NART), a privateer group started by Luigi Chinetti. And the team managed to beat the GT40 to win Le Mans in 1965, just before its dominant reign at Le Mans. But this was not the only time it competed in top-level endurance races. The 250 ran Le Mans twice, in 1968 and 1969, and it also ran the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1966, 1968, and 1970. The car is currently owned by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
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