Forest Grove Follow-up


The 2012 Forest Grove Concours d'Elegance has come and gone, and what a ride it was! From an early morning drizzle that perhaps gave some fears of a repeat of last year's wet weather, yet quickly dissipated into a cool and comfortable "day in the park" for attendees, we could not have envisioned better weather or turnout.


Viewing a field rich with the iconic silver stars of Mercedes-Benz coupes, cabriolets and roadsters, paired like fine cheeses and wine with other storied marques, we were happy to see familiar faces while making some new friends as well. Parceled among several classes were an impressive turnout from The Gullwing Group, including the #21 LeMans winning 300SL owned by Bruce McCaw, and a litany of W111 and W112 coupes that are sister cars to our beloved Ivory Zeppelin project car, to more modern iterations such as the SLS by AMG, the show field was a Benz addicts dream come true. 

Some of our friends from MBI Motors were casually walking the field, no doubt enjoying seeing these cars with their hoods down for a change, as did Roy Spencer from MercedesHeritage.com who drove up a lovely white W111 coupe fitted with a novel (relatively)modern manual floor shifter which Roy stated as being "a real pleasure to drive" up from his Burlingame, California base of operations. Annegret Reichmann and Uli Kammholz of Classic Cars & Racing shared information and resources for their perfectly restored and quite lovely dark blue 300se, tho they also had a '55 Studebaker President State Coupe and a '57 Nash Rambler at the event. Coincidentally, both the white and blue Benz coupes are for sale so please inquire here and I will be happy to put you in direct contact with either party.



Presenters for the day included Keith Martin of Sports Car Market Magazine as well as his longtime cohort and co-host, Donald Osborne of Automotive Valuation Services who impressed the crowd with his capable rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.  The pair's banter with award winners kept the pace of the show lively and entertaining.



The Rotary Club worked to make sure there were plenty of staff on hand for all purposes, available medical personnel, good food, clean and plentiful bathroom facilities, and anything else you could hope for a well-run show that ran as smoothly as Ron Rezek's elegant 1937 Lagonda Rapide that was on display (and coincidentally won it's class).


Besides the Lagonda, we enjoyed a modest and unrestored 1932 "barn find" Packard that had just the right mixture of being well-loved and well-used that appeals to us so much.  We probably wouldn't kick any of the plentiful 190sl's or 300sl's out of bed either.

Selfishly, we managed to pick up some needed parts to cure a bit of road rash our project car suffered recently, but thankfully the damage was confined to trim pieces and we look forward to getting her back on the road in short order, hopefully while the Portland summer still has some sunshine left in her.

Good fun, good people, and great cars. What more can you ask for on a Sunday afternoon?

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