Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance

2006 - Johnny Rutherford

  • 2006 PosterThe Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance begins its second decade. Three-time Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford is the honoree and Stanley Steamer is the featured marque.
  • The canoe-bodied Stanley Steamer "Rocket," refreshed and ready to drive, leaves DaytonaUSA and the City of Ormond Beach for the first time in 30 years and is displayed at the Concours.
  • The "Parade of Power" cruises up and down the 10th and 18th fairways of The Golf Club of Amelia Island at Summer Beach entertaining the sun-drenched crowd with a line-up of unique alternative propulsion vehicles.
  • The 40th Anniversary of the "anything goes" CAN-AM series is celebrated; a once-in-a-lifetime panel of drivers and designers including Jackie Oliver, Brian Redman, Vic Elford, Charlie Kemp, Bob Nagel, Hurley Haywood, Jim Hall, George Drolsom, Jim Edwards, Karl Kainhofer, Peter Bryant, Oscar Koveleski, and George Follmer mesmerizes a sold out seminar audience.
  • The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance is the first event of the U.S. Concours season to have a presentation on Alternate Power/Fuels. A class is also devoted to these vehicles.
  • Promotional vehicles of the past are given a class for the first time the "V-8 Juice Roadster" of the Petersen Automotive Museum takes home the Best In Class award over the likes of the "Moxie Mobile" and the "Zippo Lighter" car.
  • The GM Futurliner bus returns to the North Florida coast after a 50-year absence. Several one-off GM "Motorama" cars flank the Futurliner making the display one of main attractions of the show.
  • Micro Cars also have their day in the sun with a class devoted to them for the first time ever at Amelia.
  • RM Auctions hammers a record $22 million in sales for their one-day affair; a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Alloy Berlinetta Competizione is the top seller at $2,750,000. A 1938 Talbot-Lago T23 Teardrop Coupe goes for $2,145,000, and two other vehicles top the $1 million mark. Several others fall just short of the seven figure mark.
  • Another huge crowd estimated at 18,000-plus comes out for the show on a "Chamber of Commerce day."
  • The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance Foundation, Inc. donates $100,000 to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida sending the overall total to $1.5 million since the show's start in 1996.