A Lamborghini Miura and a McLaren F1 have made history at Blenheim Palace
For twenty-one years, Salon Privé has crowned exactly one Best of Show winner on the lawns of Blenheim Palace. This year it crowned two, on the same afternoon, for the first time in the event’s history.
The 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400 S, owned by Amir Ravan and the RLC Collection, took the traditional Concours d’Elégance award, the prize Salon Privé has handed out since it began. It was shown as part of a class built specifically around it, The Italian Job, marking 60 years since the Miura first appeared. Terry Bramall’s 1995 McLaren F1 took something that did not exist until this week: the inaugural Concours d’Excellence, a brand new Best of Show category created for modern supercars and hypercars rather than pre-war and post-war classics.
The top honour was created specifically for entrants into Salon Privé’s new limited-edition supercar and hypercar classes, in recognition of the growing importance of contemporary performance cars within the international collector market.
The classics are not being pushed aside, in his account, so much as joined by a category collectors have been asking for as prices and interest in modern performance cars have climbed.
The Miura’s win carries its own weight. Gandini’s design, unveiled in 1966, is widely credited with inventing the modern supercar silhouette, the low, wide, mid-engined shape that every Lamborghini since has chased in one way or another.
The McLaren F1’s win is arguably the more pointed statement. Gordon Murray’s 1992 design was never meant to be a nostalgia piece, it was an engineering marvel, built to prove a naturally aspirated V12 and a carbon monocoque could outrun anything else on the road. Bramall’s response to winning was unguarded:
The judging itself changed to match the new category.
Both Concours champions were crowned after two days of competition, which began on Wednesday 2nd September with a team of international judges, led by Chief Judge Nigel Matthews and Assistant Chief Judge Chris Kramer, using the M100 judging system.
The M100 system was built specifically because judging a hypercar on the same originality-first criteria as a pre-war classic never quite worked, and Salon Privé says it now offers a framework suited to modern engineering and design rather than forcing every entrant through the same lens.
Runners up went to Billy Hibbs’ Maserati 3500GT Spyder Prototipo by Vignale in the Concours d’Elégance, and Gregor Piech’s Porsche 918 Coupé Sonderwunsch in the new Concours d’Excellence category. The Chairman’s Award went to a Porsche Pre-A Speedster by Reutter, shown by Jane Dyke, while Most Exceptional Coachwork went to a Duesenberg SJ Speedster by Gurney Nutting, shown by Bill and Nichole Lyon. Among the seventy cars competing across the wider field were an Armstrong-Siddeley Special Six, a Maserati 8C 3000, a very early Porsche 356 Split Window Coupé, and a Bugatti Bolide, one of just forty ever built.
The electric era made its own first appearance in the results too.
Further significant entries included the 2025 Rimac Nevera Time Attack, which became the first fully electric car to compete in the Salon Privé Concours’ 21-year history, alongside the historically significant Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 Prototype 1.
Neither took a top prize this year, but their presence on the same lawn as a Duesenberg from the golden age of motoring says something about how wide the definition of a collector car has had to stretch.
One of the two Best of Show winners, either the Miura or the F1, will represent Salon Privé at the Peninsula Classics Best of the Best in January 2027, up against the champions of Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, Cavallino Classic and The Quail. Salon Privé has not yet said which of the two it will send.
Salon Privé continues at Blenheim Palace until Sunday 6th September, running through its Concours de Vente sales competition, Supercar Saturday and a Supercar Sunday that will once again see Richard Hammond return as a judge.
Whichever car Salon Privé sends to January’s Peninsula Classics final, EyeOnLondon will be watching how it fares against Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach’s own champions.
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