(Words and Photos by Joe Grippo) Over the past few weeks, we have been showing galleries of my Florida vacation photos. Drag Racing thus far had been the focus of the first half of our trip, with the Don Garlits Museum and the NHRA Baby Gators, but now we are switching it up…big time.

When we started planning our winter getaway to the Sunshine State, Gainesville was the main destination, but we looked around for other stuff to do, and as luck would have it, we were going to be down there at the same time the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance was happening. The Amelia Island event is a multiday affair with high end auctions, several different car shows and gatherings spanning almost an entire whole week. We didn’t want to give up a day at drags, so we planned to hit up the Sunday Concours at the Ritz Carlton, it was the highlight event of the show week anyway. Now, we go to tons of car shows and races, but this was a different experience for my wife Stacey and me. First off, it was expensive, like 170 bucks each expensive. Hagerty Insurance owns the show now and as members of their Drivers Club we received a substantial discount, but it was salty, nonetheless. It was, however, completely worth it. The attendees were quite different as well, I am used to car t-shirts, shorts and Vans, this crowd were strolling around with wine glasses, leather shoes and sport coats. Luckily Stacey did some pre-show research and made me at least were a shirt with a collar. Whatever. It was all about the cars for me, and there was some killer stuff to drool over.

Spotlight classes at this year’s Concours included Historic 50’s Customs, Ferrari GT Berlinetta’s, Porsche 959’s, LeMans Corvettes, Lamborghini Super Cars, Fiberglass Dreams (Specials), Board Track Motorcycles, and Cars of the 2023 Honoree Jeff Gordon among many others. 260 cars in total filled up a few holes and fairways of the beautiful Golf Club of Amelia Island on the grounds of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. This was some serious shit, definitely not a cruise night at our local Sonic level. I saw rides I had only read about since I was kid like Lamborghini Miura’s, Peter Revson’s McLaren, a Reading Standard Board Track Racer, a Greenwood Corvette and the Bob Hirohata Mercury and so much more. Really, too cool much stuff to even list in this already wordy blog. So, dig into the galleries for some absolute BANGshift worthy goodness and a bunch of amazingly vehicles you don’t often see on these digital pages. Hope you enjoy clicking through as much as I did clicking on my camera shutter button.

THE GALLERY IS BELOW THE VIDEO!