Pebble Beach Concours 2025: Not Your Average Day at the Beach

The 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C Nieuport-Astra Torpedo is to your average road-going car what a Stradivarius is to your average pawn shop fiddle. That is to say, it’s got four wheels and a motor, but the resemblance ends there. Commissioned by aperitif heir Andre Dubonnet by WWI aircraft maker Nieuport-Astra, its body is made from mahogany strips laid over sheets of handmade plywood and secured by some 10,000 aluminum rivets. In addition to a top-10 finish at the famed Targa Florio in its heyday, this once-state-of-the-art racer can now add Best in Show winner at the world’s most prestigious vintage car show to its long list of accolades. Of course, if you’d been at the 2025 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, you’d likely already know that.

Known simply as “Pebble Beach” to the automotive Illuminati, the event is the grand finale of Monterey Car Week, a gathering of the world’s most ardent car-lovers from around the world that also includes The Quail, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and half a dozen other top-shelf automotive events. In contrast to the other races, rallies and gatherings throughout the week, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance invites the world’s most serious car collectors to bring out their finest pieces to compete for the coveted “Best in Show” award. This year’s 74th edition featured 229 cars from 22 countries and drew 20,000 spectators to ogle the sheet metal parked on the famed 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links.

While this year’s Best in Show predictably took up the lion’s share of the spotlight, there was no shortage of other equally drool-worthy examples of automotive finesse on display, from a 1939 Maybach SW38 Spohn Sport Zweisitzer to a 1933 Invicta 4½ Litre S Type Corsica Drophead Coupé to a 1956 Maserati 200SI Fantuzzi Open Sports Racer. Fortunately for the owners of these and other would-be champs, there were plenty of awards to go around. Among the most notable second-tier winners were a 1989 Ferrari 640 Formula 1, which received the Chairman’s Trophy, a 1910 Renault BZ Moore & Munger Town Car, which was awarded the French Cup, and a 1955 Chrysler Falcon that won the Spirit of Virgil Exner Trophy.

Every car tells a story

While Pebble Beach’s main draw is, of course, the cars themselves, this year’s event was as much an opportunity for serious petrolheads to meet, mingle and talk shop as ever. With well over a century’s worth of automotive history on display, it was easy to spend the entire day learning about rare prewar brands, one-in-a-million barn finds and the painstaking efforts that go into restoring these priceless autos to their former glory.

Had, for example, you crossed paths with Bill Passey, the owner of a 1925 Locomobile Model 48 Boattail Roadster that took first-place in the Prewar Preservation category, he might have regaled you with stories of the glory days of Locomobile, a brand that earned the nickname “the American Mercedes,” thanks to its solid build quality and powerful engines. Passey could also tell you about his father, the legendary collector Jack Passey, who amassed a collection of over 200 antique and classic cars over his lifetime, and helped to put the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on the map. As unique as Passey’s story may be, it was just one of many swapped at this year’s Concours, and one of just as many compelling reasons for anyone who loves cars, history and California sunshine to plan a trip to Monterey next year. It and others – like the Hispano-Suiza triumph – are more than classic cars. They are reminders that Pebble Beach isn’t simply about polishing chrome or collecting accolades – it’s about preserving stories written in wood, rivets and steel. And for one weekend each August, those stories come alive on the edge of the Pacific, proving that history on wheels is anything but standing still.

Feature image: Land Rover Classic curated a special exhibition titled “The Great Expeditions, 75 Years of Land Rover Traversing the Globe” on the famed 17th fairway at Pebble Beach. This collection showcased ten historic vehicles spanning from 1950 to 2014, including Series, Defender, Discovery and Range Rover models—each embodying rugged heritage and remarkable journeys.