Arizona Biltmore Concours d'Elegance planned for Jan. 12

Work is underway to hold a Concours d'Elegance at the Arizona Biltmore on Sunday, Jan. 12 -- the Sunday preceding the classic-car auctions in Scottsdale.

The date makes a lot of sense. Barrett-Jackson begins rolling cars over the block on that same day -- and keeps doing it all the way through to Jan. 19. RM Auctions, Gooding & Co. and Silver Auctions open for business Jan. 17, while Russo & Steele runs Jan. 15-19. All of the auctions take place north of Phoenix in the greater Scottsdale area, more or less.

So why not start it all off with a concours?

“The idea's been kicked around for probably about a decade,” said concours spokesman and former Arizona Republic and Speedtv.com auto writer Bob Golfen. “People have taken a stab at it over the years, but the idea's never had an organization like this behind it.”

The plan is to have the concours on the large, hexagonal lawn in the center of the hotel grounds, with maybe a few more cars scattered around. There will be at least 75 cars and possibly as many as 100, organizers hope. The concours is to be “modeled after” Pebble Beach and Villa d'Este. Aim high, we say. The collector-car community is pretty well established in the area, with the concours to be lead by local collector Kevin Cornish, with help from the region's many car enthusiasts.

That doesn't mean all the cars will be from Scottsdale.

“This is really an international call for cars,” said Golfen.

Concours director Cornish was at Pebble Beach and the other car events in Monterey a couple weeks ago, talking to collectors and enlisting cars for the show.

The idea is to have classes like the ones you would see at Pebble: CCCA classes, pre- and post- war European and American classics, avant-garde cars, a preservation class and the like. Ideally, judges would be drawn from events like Amelia Island and Pebble.

It all sounds promising. You can keep up with the event's progress at www.arizonaconcours.com. Right now there's not much on the site, and the concours itself is still in the planning stages, but the idea is certainly good. Here's hoping they pull it off and make it a tradition.

By Mark Vaughn