Pebble Beach Concours 2026: Biggest Highlights, Ferrari Cars and Best of Show

The Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is bringing Monterey Car Week to its traditional grand finale on August 16, with the 75th edition of one of the world’s most prestigious automotive events taking place at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California. First held in 1950, the Concours has spent more than seven decades bringing together historically significant automobiles, exceptional restorations, important racing machines and some of the most beautiful cars ever created. This year’s event is particularly significant because it marks the 75th anniversary, giving Pebble Beach an opportunity to celebrate its own history while bringing together several important chapters of automotive design and motorsport.

The 75th Pebble Beach Concours is not simply another classic-car gathering. The event’s 18th-fairway show field is built around automobiles that have exceptional stories, design significance, racing history or craftsmanship, with judges evaluating factors including elegance, technical merit and historical importance before the coveted Best of Show award is decided. At the same time, Pebble Beach has evolved into a wider automotive celebration where historic automobiles can share attention with new concepts and important modern-car debuts. That combination of heritage and innovation is one of the reasons the event remains such an important part of the global automotive calendar.

Why Pebble Beach Concours 2026 Is Special

The significance of Pebble Beach 2026 goes beyond the number 75. The Concours has become one of the places where automotive history is actively preserved, allowing important cars to be seen in the context of the people, designers, engineers, races and manufacturers that created them. Unlike a normal car show where the newest models usually dominate attention, Pebble Beach gives equal importance to cars that may be several decades or even more than a century old, provided they have the originality, craftsmanship and historical importance expected of a Concours automobile.

That philosophy becomes particularly interesting during the 75th anniversary because this year’s programme deliberately covers very different periods of automotive history. Ferrari competition cars, Vignale-bodied automobiles, early American speedsters, classic streamliners, Pebble Beach road-racing machines and Japanese motorsport cars are all part of the featured classes. Instead of concentrating on one particular type of collector car, the 2026 event effectively tells a broader story about how automobiles evolved through racing, aerodynamics, coachbuilding, engineering and changing ideas about performance.

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Ferrari Pebble Beach 2026: The Featured Marque

Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa at Pebble Beach Concours 2026
A Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa displayed on the Pebble Beach lawn during the Concours d’Elegance.

One of the biggest highlights of Ferrari Pebble Beach 2026 is the Italian manufacturer’s position as the primary featured marque for the 75th Concours. Ferrari has a long relationship with Pebble Beach, with the first Ferrari appearing at the event in 1951. Since then, more than 900 Ferraris have reportedly been hosted at the Concours, making the marque’s history at Pebble Beach almost as significant as its history at many of the world’s major racing venues. For the 2026 celebration, the focus is particularly strong on Chinetti and North American Racing Team, or NART, competition cars.

The Ferrari display also highlights how important American racing was to the company’s development and reputation. Luigi Chinetti played a major role in establishing Ferrari in the United States, while NART became closely associated with Ferrari’s racing activities in North America. Bringing these cars together at the 75th Concours therefore does more than give visitors an opportunity to see rare Ferraris; it connects Ferrari’s European engineering and racing heritage with the American motorsport culture that helped make the brand a global icon.

Vignale Adds Another Layer of Italian Coachbuilding

Alongside Ferrari, Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale is the featured coachbuilder at the 2026 event. This is an important choice because coachbuilding played a huge role in the identity of many classic Italian sports cars. During the golden era of Italian automotive design, manufacturers could provide the mechanical foundation while specialist coachbuilders created distinctive bodies, giving individual cars their own character and visual identity.

Vignale’s history is closely connected with some of Italy’s most important marques, including Ferrari, Lancia, Fiat and Maserati. Alfredo Vignale established his own carrozzeria in 1948 after working in the Italian coachbuilding industry, and his collaboration with designer Giovanni Michelotti became particularly important during the 1950s. The resulting automobiles remain highly valued today because they combine engineering from major manufacturers with hand-crafted Italian bodywork that is extremely difficult to reproduce.

Pebble Beach Concours Cars Celebrate Racing History

The Pebble Beach Concours cars competing and appearing in the 2026 event are also connected by a strong motorsport theme. One of the featured classes focuses on Pebble Beach Road Racing Greats, bringing the event back to its own origins. The first Pebble Beach Road Race took place in November 1950, with the first Concours held alongside it. Racing continued in the Del Monte Forest until 1956 before the increasing speeds and safety concerns eventually led to the development of what became Laguna Seca.

That history gives the 75th anniversary a special meaning. Pebble Beach did not begin simply as a static display of beautiful automobiles; it was closely connected with the excitement of road racing and the growing American interest in European sports cars. The 2026 celebration brings that heritage back into focus by displaying sporting cars that raced through the forest during the event’s early years. It is a reminder that the history of Pebble Beach is inseparable from the history of motorsport in California.

Japanese Motorsports Gets a Major Spotlight

Another important part of Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is the dedicated Japanese Motorsports class. Japanese manufacturers spent decades building their reputation through increasingly ambitious motorsport programmes, particularly in endurance racing. Toyota, Mazda, Nissan and Honda all developed significant competition histories, and their achievements at events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans helped change the way the global automotive community viewed Japanese performance engineering.

Mazda’s 1991 Le Mans victory with the rotary-powered 787B remains one of the most famous moments in Japanese motorsport history, while Toyota eventually established a dominant modern-era presence at Le Mans with five consecutive overall victories from 2018 through 2022. Nissan also demonstrated its potential in the early 1990s, including a pole position at Le Mans in 1990. By giving Japanese racing cars a dedicated presence in the 2026 Concours, Pebble Beach is recognising how important this part of motorsport history has become within the collector-car world.

Early American Speedsters and the Birth of Streamliners

The 2026 featured classes also explore two fascinating periods in American automotive design: Early American Speedsters and Classic Streamliners. The speedsters represent an era when manufacturers and enthusiasts were still experimenting with the basic formula of the automobile. These cars were typically lightweight, relatively simple and focused heavily on performance, with open bodies, powerful engines and minimal equipment giving them a strong connection to early racing machines.

Classic streamliners tell a very different story. During the second half of the 1930s, automotive designers became increasingly fascinated by aerodynamics and the possibility of using smoother shapes to reduce drag and create the appearance of speed. Flowing fenders, sloping grilles and fastback bodies replaced some of the upright designs that had dominated earlier automobiles. Pebble Beach’s decision to highlight this period is particularly appropriate because these cars demonstrate how styling and engineering began working together to shape the modern automobile.

Four Historic Cars From the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair

1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow displayed at the Chicago World's Fair
The 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow, an iconic American streamliner from the era of the Chicago World’s Fair.

One of the most unusual Pebble Beach Concours highlights is the reunion of four important cars associated with the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The event, officially known as the Century of Progress International Exposition, was designed to showcase technological and industrial progress during a difficult period in American history. Automobiles were among its major attractions, and manufacturers used the World’s Fair to demonstrate what they believed the future of transportation could look like.

Pebble Beach is bringing together a Duesenberg, Packard, Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow and Cadillac Aerodynamic Coupe associated with that historic exhibition. These automobiles are significant because they represent a period when American manufacturers were experimenting with advanced styling, powerful engines and aerodynamic forms while attempting to give consumers a glimpse of the future. More than nine decades later, their reunion at the 75th Concours creates a direct connection between the futuristic ambitions of the 1930s and the design experiments taking place in today’s automotive industry.

Lamborghini Miura Celebrates 60 Years

Lamborghini Miura celebrating 60 years during Monterey Car Week 2026
The iconic Lamborghini Miura, celebrating its 60th anniversary during Monterey Car Week 2026.

The Lamborghini Miura adds another important chapter to the wider Pebble Beach 2026 celebration. Lamborghini is marking the 60th anniversary of the Miura with a special display on the third fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links, with the gathering expected to become the largest collection of Miuras assembled in one location. The display is scheduled for August 16, giving visitors an opportunity to see one of the most influential supercars in automotive history gathered together in exceptional numbers.

The Miura deserves this attention because it fundamentally changed the idea of a road-going supercar. First unveiled in 1966, its transverse mid-engine layout and dramatic Bertone-designed body helped establish a formula that would influence generations of exotic performance cars. The importance of the Miura is therefore not limited to its collectability or appearance; it represents a major turning point in automotive design, when racing-inspired engineering began influencing the layout and proportions of high-performance road cars in a much more visible way.

Pebble Beach Is Also Looking Toward the Future

Although the Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is primarily known for historic automobiles, the event has increasingly become a meeting point between automotive heritage and future design. The official Concours describes the event as a place where extraordinary historic automobiles compete alongside anticipated concepts and new-car debuts. That means visitors are not simply looking at what the automobile used to be; they are also being given an opportunity to see how manufacturers imagine the next generation of luxury, performance and design.

This is particularly important as the automotive industry moves through a major technological transition. Electric powertrains, advanced software, new materials and changing approaches to luxury are transforming modern vehicles, but Pebble Beach shows that the emotional side of the automobile remains important. The same values that made a beautifully designed classic special decades ago — proportion, craftsmanship, engineering and individuality — continue to influence modern performance cars and concepts. The event therefore works as a bridge between automotive history and the future rather than treating the two as completely separate worlds.

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Pebble Beach Best of Show 2026: What Judges Look For

1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports winning Best of Show at Pebble Beach Concours
The 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports celebrates its Best of Show victory at the 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

The Pebble Beach Best of Show 2026 award remains the biggest prize of the event, but winning it requires much more than owning a rare automobile. The Concours brings together cars that are already exceptional, so judges must look closely at originality, authenticity, restoration quality, historical significance, technical merit and elegance. The objective is to identify the automobile that most completely represents the qualities expected of a Pebble Beach Concours winner rather than simply choosing the most expensive or powerful car on the field.

At the time of writing, the 2026 Best of Show result is still awaiting the official announcement, with the awards ceremony scheduled as the final part of Concours Sunday. The result will carry additional significance because the winning car will become the Best of Show winner of the 75th anniversary edition. Last year’s award went to the 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C Nieuport-Astra Torpedo, demonstrating the kind of originality, design importance and historical character that can ultimately separate a Pebble Beach winner from an already extraordinary field.

Why Pebble Beach Concours 2026 Matters

The biggest strength of Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is the variety of automotive stories being told in one place. Ferrari competition cars connect enthusiasts with international racing history, Vignale-bodied cars celebrate the craftsmanship of Italian coachbuilding, Japanese motorsport machines highlight the rise of Asian performance engineering, while the streamliners and early speedsters show how designers experimented with speed and aerodynamics generations ago.

At the same time, the Lamborghini Miura anniversary demonstrates how the definition of automotive heritage continues to expand. A car that was once considered a radical modern supercar is now itself an important piece of history, showing how quickly the industry can move from innovation to heritage. That is perhaps the most interesting lesson from the 75th anniversary: today’s revolutionary performance cars will eventually become tomorrow’s collector cars, while the ideas created decades ago continue to influence what manufacturers build today.

Final Take

The Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is much more than the final event of Monterey Car Week. Its 75th anniversary brings together Ferrari competition history, Vignale coachbuilding, early American speedsters, classic streamliners, Japanese motorsport and Pebble Beach’s own road-racing heritage, creating a remarkably broad celebration of automotive history. The Lamborghini Miura’s 60th anniversary adds another layer by celebrating a car that helped define the modern supercar, while the event’s continued relationship with concepts and new-car debuts keeps its focus firmly connected to the future.

The final question is now the Best of Show Pebble Beach 2026 result, which will determine which automobile takes the biggest honour of the 75th anniversary celebration. Whatever car ultimately receives the trophy, the wider story of this year’s Concours is already clear: great automobiles are remembered not simply because they are expensive, fast or rare, but because they represent something important about design, engineering, competition and the people who created them. That ability to preserve those stories while continuing to welcome the future is what makes Pebble Beach one of the most important events in the automotive world.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the Pebble Beach Concours 2026?

The Pebble Beach Concours 2026 is being held on Sunday, August 16, at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California. It is the traditional finale of Monterey Car Week and marks the 75th edition of the Concours d’Elegance. The official schedule includes judging from 8:00 AM and the awards ceremony from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM local time.

Who is the featured marque at Pebble Beach Concours 2026?

Ferrari is the primary featured marque for the 75th Pebble Beach Concours, with a special focus on Chinetti and NART competition cars. Vignale is the featured coachbuilder, highlighting the importance of Italian coachbuilt design in Ferrari’s history.

What is the Pebble Beach Best of Show award?

The Best of Show is the highest honour awarded at the Pebble Beach Concours. Judges consider factors such as elegance, technical merit, history, originality and authenticity when evaluating the competing automobiles.

Why is the Lamborghini Miura important at Pebble Beach in 2026?

The Lamborghini Miura is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2026. Pebble Beach is hosting a special gathering expected to become the largest collection of Miuras assembled in one location, celebrating the car’s influence on the development of the modern supercar.

What are the major Pebble Beach Concours cars and classes in 2026?

The featured programme includes Ferrari Chinetti and NART competition cars, Vignale-bodied cars, Early American Speedsters, Classic Streamliners, Pebble Beach Road Racing Greats and Japanese Motorsports, alongside other significant collector automobiles.

Ride And Tech Verdict

The 75th Pebble Beach Concours 2026 proves that automotive history is not something that simply belongs in museums. It remains alive through the cars that are preserved, restored, driven, raced and passed from one generation of enthusiasts to the next. From Ferrari’s racing heritage and Vignale’s craftsmanship to the Lamborghini Miura and the remarkable cars representing America’s and Japan’s motorsport history, this year’s event brings together an extraordinary range of automotive stories.

What makes Pebble Beach truly special is the way it connects those stories with the future. The automobile is changing rapidly through electrification, technology and new approaches to design, but the values that make a great car memorable have not disappeared. Beautiful proportions, engineering excellence, craftsmanship, individuality and a compelling story still matter, whether the car is decades old or represents the next generation of performance and luxury.

At Ride And Tech, we believe every car has a story — and the best stories are the ones that keep moving forward.

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Sachin Sharma
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Sachin Sharma

Founder & Automotive Writer at Ride And Tech

Covering automotive news, car and bike launches, electric vehicles, automotive technology, buying guides and industry developments.

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