We love good hotels, but we also love classic cars, and the Peninsula has found some clever ways of joining the two. As a result, they’ve become the quintessential choice for the world’s most important classic car lovers. This association with the world of vintage cars began when the Peninsula started to host arguably the best event of the Monterey Car Week each year – The Quail (held at the Quail Lodge and Golf Club in Carmel on a Friday, two days before Pebble Beach, and limited to just 5,000 people willing to pay the 1,000 USD entry fee). But they also identified a gap in the global concours d’élégance circuit, which was to choose a single standout winner from a pool of best-of-show award winners from the world’s top concours (Pebble Beach, Villa d’Este, The Quail, Amelia Island, Cavallino Classic, Salon Privé Blenheim Palace, Cartier Style et Luxe, Chantilly and Hampton Court Palace).

ABOVE: Held at the Peninsula Paris, this year’s event was won by a Ferrari 250 LM which underwent a meticulous restoration by Ferrari’s Classiche department.

“I would say the Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Award is a celebration of friendship and passion,” explains Christian Philippsen, a co-founder of the event and the original creator of the Louis Vuitton Bagatelle Concours d’Elégance back in 1988 (held in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne). He spent two decades collaborating with LV, and was the man who brought LV Classics to Hurlingham Club in London as well as the Rockefeller Center in New York. Indeed, it was only in 2002, after a newly elected mayor of Paris decided to ban cars from all public parks that Bagatelle came to an end, and that’s when he came up with a new concept, originally in partnership with LV. The idea was simple enough, if they could not have a physical presence in Paris, why not just create a roaming concours that elects a single best-of-the-best? It ran for eight years but ended when new management terminated the fashion house’s relationship with classic cars in 2012. Even so, the concept was always a winner for Philippsen and thanks to a new patron, namely Sir Michael Kadoorie (whose family originally hails from Iraq and who is of course the chairman of Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, which are the owners and operators of the Peninsula Hotel Group), they restarted the best of the best idea in 2015 as a signature Peninsula “moment” – with the support of William E. (Chip) Connor and Bruce Meyer, two of the world’s most important car collectors. By the way, as anyone who has stayed at a Peninsula can attest, the “moments” are truly one-of-a-kind, and allow access to people and places that even a Centurion membership can only dream of.

But at this point, some of you dear readers may be asking what a concours d’élégance actually is? So, we put it to Philippsen. “It’s a competition for classic cars that covers a wide variety of events and approaches, and sometimes it can feel like it should be renamed a concours d’état due to the value people now place on safeguarding the original condition of cars, but that’s another conversation. I think when organising a concours, the first thing you have to do is set consistent classes because you can’t compare a Type 35 Bugatti with a Rolls Royce Phantom, they’re too different. Consequently, the categories must include the type of car and the period, and winning your class must be on account of authenticity. There should be no emotion or subjectivity at this point. The judging equation only changes when you must choose a show winner, and that’s only natural because everybody has their own interpretation of what elegance is supposed to mean.”

ABOVE: Located on Avenue Kleber, the Peninsula Paris offers traditional grand-dame service and opulence with a contemporary edge. And at the event in which he won the award, Chris Cox, the owner of the Ferrari 350 LM said, “I am truly humbled to receive this distinguished award. It brings me tremendous joy to show a vehicle with such a rich history at the world’s biggest concours, and being selected for the award is the highest honour a car collector can achieve.”

If that’s the case, then what kind of car wins a best-of the-best? “In the ten years of the Peninsula’s Best of the Best competition, we have had 76 cars competing. Of the 76 cars, 45 were pre-war, typically with one-off coachwork, and 31 cars were post-war, and mostly series production. But, the way we choose a winner is by a democratic process. First, we prepare a file for each car that includes photographs, technical specifications and the history of the car. Then we send those files to all the judges wherever they are. We give them a deadline, and each judge picks their first, second and third favourite car. These results are then compiled by an independent auditor and a winner is chosen. But let’s be honest every single candidate has won a top concours, so they all deserve to win. That’s why I say it’s a result based on emotions, not data.”

At this year’s event, which we attended in person in Paris, the winner was a stunning 1964 Ferrari 250 LM owned by Chris Cox from the US. The car is number 13 of only 32 examples ever produced and has benefitted from a comprehensive restoration at Ferrari’s own Classiche department. As a result, it won the Best in Show at the Cavallino Classic Concorso d’Eleganza in 2024. It is valued in region of 36 million USD, although winning Peninsula’s Best of the Best award may add further value to this prized automobile.

So, what’s next with Peninsula’s Best of the Best competition? Carson Glover, who has been Director of Marketing and Communications for Peninsula Hotels since February 2017 adds his perspective: “The Best of the Best is an excellent opportunity to celebrate an aspect of our brand but what we are deliberating on now is how to make the event more accessible to the public. For example, for last year’s winner, we developed an afternoon tea themed by the winner, a 1935 Duesenberg Model SJ Speedster, which remained displayed in the lobby of our London property for a month. This year’s winner is being displayed at a Peninsula stand at the Rétromobile show in Paris for five days. Going forwards, we would like to make the event more commercial so that we could afford to bring all the finalists together and display them in one location.”

Now that does sound amazing but, in the meantime, the Peninsula does offer a plethora of other moments you can enjoy. For example, in our short séjour in Paris, they organised a trip up the Seine in a classic river boat named La Dolce Vita, a caviar tasting session at Maison Kaviari, as well as a day thrashing Porsches both on-road and off-road at the famous Le Mans circuit. Yup, as we said, the Peninsula is much more than a hotel chain.