Payne: Concours d’Elegance move downtown jump-starts 2022 Detroit car calendar

Posted by Talbot Payne on July 4, 2021

The cool cars are coming back to Detroit.

In a major move for the 43-year-old institution, the Concours d’Elegance of America said it is moving to downtown Detroit for the first time in September 2022. With its new home at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the high-profile collectors car show gives momentum to the North American International Auto Show — aka, the Detroit Auto Show — scheduled for the same month as the city reboots after two years of COVID cancellations.

“We really want to celebrate the glorious, elegant history of Detroit with all of its cultural value. The DIA in particular is tailor-made to showcase the elegance of truly great cars,” McKeel Hagerty, CEO of The Hagerty Group, said in an interview. Hagerty owns the Concours. “The DIA also happens to be right on Woodward, which is one of the very few roads in the United States — think of Route 66, think of Highway One — that has, in and of itself, a history in the automotive world.”

Concours has been anchored in the Metro Detroit suburbs for decades — first at Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills and then the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth. The event will take place in Plymouth this year (July 22-25) with delicious classic cars sprawled across the Inn’s main campus and golf course.

The Concours move to Detroit dovetails with plans for the Detroit Auto Show to return to the TCF Center in the fall of 2022. Last held in January 2019, NAIAS has twice been canceled due to coronavirus concerns — first in June 2020 and then this year’s planned event in September. NAIAS will have a scaled-down show outside Detroit — called Motor Bella — Sept. 21-26 at M1 Concourse in Pontiac.

“The more car events in Detroit the better,” said Detroit Auto Show CEO Rod Alberts. “Having Concours around the same time (as NAIAS) created more reason to go downtown and complement what we are doing.”

Traverse City-based Hagerty, the world’s largest provider of specialty insurance for enthusiast vehicles, has raised its profile in recent years as an auto enthusiast brand with sponsorships of over 2,500 auto events from vintage racing to classic car auctions to the Festival of the Exceptional in England. This year, Hagerty added the Concours d’Elegance of America and Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance to its portfolio.

The Concours move to Detroit dovetails with plans for the Detroit Auto Show to return to TCF Center in the fall of 2022.

McKeel Hagerty said the September date is scheduled with an eye on the Detroit Auto Show — as well as other summer classic car events like The Henry Ford’s Motor Muster in June and M1’s American Festival of Speed in September.

“The most coordination we can possibly have, the better,” said McKeel Hagerty. “If you look at, for example, in the vintage car week out in Monterey, California, which starts with vintage racing (at Laguna Seca Raceway) and then culminates with the Pebble Beach Concours — it’s a lot of events that cluster near each other. It’s meant to be highly collaborative and (to) say that this a great month for the vintage historic, cultural value of cars. It’s not just about the new car market.”

In the absence of auto shows the Detroit Institute of the Arts provided welcome eye candy over the last year with its “Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950-2020” exhibition. The show brought in some of the most iconic auto designs of the post-WWII years — vehicles like GM’s 1956 Firebird III and 2017 Ford GT — to show off the evolution of automotive design. The show will run at the DIA through January 2022, said curator Ben Colman.

Detroit got a needed boost this summer from the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear which returned to Belle Isle after cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As vaccinated Michigan rapidly accelerates out of the epidemic, the nationally televised Grand Prix was the first U.S. professional race to ditch masks.

2021 Concours d'Elegance of America at St. Johns

Hagerty’s move of the Concours downtown drives against traffic as enthusiast events have been headed north into Oakland County. In addition to Motor Bella at M1, the Pontiac-based car club will be the epicenter for Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge on Aug. 14, followed by the Woodward Dream Show Aug. 21. The inaugural American Speed Festival will follow Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 with a celebration of performance cars “past, present, and future.”

Speed Festival this week announced the legendary Jim Hall, founder of Chaparral race cars, will be the Inaugural Master of Motorsports, On display will be, among other classic cars, the 1966 Chaparral 2.

Further north in Oakland County, off-road enthusiasts will descend on Holly Oaks ORV Park — one of the country’s premier off-road facilities — for Detroit 4Fest Sept. 25-26.

In a major move for the 43-year old institution, the Concours d'Elegance of America said it is moving to downtown Detroit for the first time in September 2022.

The September 2022 Concours d’Elegance show will feature classic cars at multiple locations in Detroit with the DIA as the show’s anchor. Hagerty thinks the timing will benefit schools as well as the NAIAS.

“We are deeply passionate about also doing our car events whenever possible during the school year,” said McKeel Hagerty. “Imagine sending cars around to the schools and involving different school aged kids.”

Details and dates for September 2022 will be announced closer to the event.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.

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