Concourso Italiano 2004 - Piss Poor Planning

Because of a parking problem?

 

i agree the parking was horrible, i burned 1/4 tank of gas in line(damn webbers) but once in i had a great time 4 enzos! a 288GTO! crazy old bizzarinis and iso's i remember from car and driver as a kid! i thought i'd died and gone to heaven! parked my 308 in the dirt(it washes) hey if the extra hour is more than you can take, by all means stay home, for myself i'm gonna get there earlier next year!

 

Ironically the spectator parking was a snap to get into and very close to the event. If you had a freshly cleaned car it was a pain as they had it in a field.

 

A snap? I don't know what time you got there, but it took me 45 minutes of creeping along to get in. It would have been 2 to 3 hours if a cop had not come along and redirected traffic that was jammed up on the highway exit.

 

Cmon guys, Im stuck over here on the East Coast, going to as many events as I can, usually around once a month. You guys get a chance of a lifetime to see all these amazing cars, and are complaining about parking! Just remember us stuck over here !

David

 

It's the old early bird thing....... got there at around 7:30 and drove right in.

 

Yeh I was a little disappointed at certain points in the day. I didnt have a problem with parking because my Ferrari was entered into the show.

The Ferrari of North America "gatherings" left much to be imagined. I was upset with the "VIP" breakfast, which consisted of water flavored coffee and some cranberry juice. There were no pasteries or food at all. The "lunch" which was not cheap, consisted of waiting in long buffet lines to find that most of the food was cold and/or gone. Oh well, I expected more from Ferrari NA, but I can understand that it is not easy to cater to such an event. I had an awesome time! I cannot wait till next year, I mean how often do you see such a large gathering of such enthusiastic people and such amazing Italian cars!

Long live Ferrari!!!

 

I disagree, I was at parking lot B at 9:00 too. It is true that the lot was full, but had no problem getting into lot A and on the grounds by 9:30.
This is a huge event and parking will always be difficult. Leaving at 3:30, I was on the highway in ten minutes instead of two hours like at Quail.
I have been attending for seven years I believe, and I will be back next year. Contrary to the post a ways up, there are a lot of newer cars at this event, but it still has a huge attendance of vintage cars. I still believe it is the premier event for quantity and quality of vintage Italian cars.

 

Ditto. You guys are so spoilt!

 

While I would have liked to have seen soem of hte 250GTOs at CI, overall, I thought it was great. We left our hotel in Marina at 7, and were parked on the green by 7:30. Cars were well placed I thought,with lots of room between, and some interesting groupings. Didn't bother to pay for the fancy toilets or food, and was very pleased with abundance and variety of the regular-folks toilets and food. Going home, we hung around till late (4:30) so we could watch the other cars leave. When we finally left, there was absolutely no traffic, and we were back to our hotel in 15 minutes.

I'll do it again. Biggest dissapointment was the Quail show running concurrently with CI: not cool. As much as I'd really like to have seen the cars and exhibits there, I'm so PO'd with Steve Earl doing it same day, I'll boycott that show even if he does manage to drive CI to death.

Sure wish the big boys with attitude could get their stuff worked out so that we spectators could see it all. But I guess boys with too much money and attitude will be adolescents...

 

After exiting from CA-1, it took me 40 minutes to go about 2 miles, but after I took the turnoff to the spectator lot, I was parked, with a fairly short walk to the entrance, in under another 10 minutes. And at that time, about 9 AM, that lot was still mostly empty.

The negatives were that the lot was extremely bumpy and very dusty. I was glad I was in a rented Neon and not in my 328! When I exited the lot at about 3:45 (and it had filled up pretty completely) I saw a number of rather dusty F-cars and even a Ford GT! But my trip back to the freeway was a snap.

I won't be back next year (but for other reasons that have nothing to do with the access problem), but I hope that they eventually solve the problems, because I enjoyed myself once I got in.

 

I had to pull over and turn off the engine to let things cool down. At least eight other vintage V12s or Dinos were on the side of the road, almost overheated, or just plain steaming. At the 12th Street exit, they did not even have a cop getting the exhibitord onto the main road. Each car waited at the 2 way stop for at least 3 minutes, and multiply that by a long line of cars.

The event is fun, special, but it is too big. And the organizers assured us of no more of the same problems (read my lips, no traffic jams to get in). The guy next to me flew in his 250 Cal Spider from Michigan and he said he sat in traffic for 2 hours !
I hear that Concorso has been sold to another interest/party, but that is just gossip. Perhaps Frank M and co still own it.

 

Seeing as how it was scheduled to open at 9, I didn't try that. At 9:30, traffic was backed up on the main highway exit all the way back to the highway and several hundred yards down the highway on the shoulder. The ultimate hangup seemed to be the traffic control going into the parking lot. Once past that, the short drive into the parking lot was non-stop.

 

I understand that it's now run by the new owner. Not sure who that is.

 

You might aim at the right target(s). For starters, Steve Earle is not the organizer of the event at Quail; Steve organizes the Historics, which far predate the CI (by 20 years or so). The Concours Italiano was created on a date which was already occupied by the MHAR, based on the success of those races and the Pebble Beach concours.

The rest of your statement is just plain nonsense.

 

I went to Concorso in the morning and Quail in the afternoon. Consorso was the usual cluster %$&# to get into, but I really enjoyed the Bizzarinis, which I haven't seen in earlier shows.

Quail was much smaller, but had much rarer cars. But the big bonus of Quail was the tons of food and booze stations -all you can eat and drink, included in the entry fee!

 

It was for us too. Jeffery picked me up at 11:30 and we waited for 20 minutes. We parked in the spectator section as well. We had the Range Rover. THANKGOD! I felt so bad looking at all the Ferrari's parking there! Did you see the dust piles! And the people who forgot to put up the T-top!
I'm sure they weren't too happy.

Next year. We are bringing the Rover.

BTW it was nice meeting you.

 

I'm sorry guys but the highlight for me was the "Le Dog" I had 5 the whole weekend!

 

I got to the coda (as they say in Italy) around 7:30 AM and I could not believe how much traffic was stacked up for the exhibitor entrance?! Which turned out to also be the corral entrance and just about everything but general admission entrance.

I talked to a cop on the way out and he said the backup was totally unecessary and was due to the CI people not opening the gates until 8AM or something like that. Which caused the whole damn backup... no wonder the line wasn't moving at all. My Dino was really getting hot idling... I just can't understand how year after year they cannot organize the traffic flow and parking.

Great marketing to get cars from all over to drive in, but they can't organize their way out of a paper bag.

Also, not directly related, is they should get a commentator who can do basic Italian pronunciation. The guy they had was somewhat funny and knowledgeable about the cars, but he could barely say the word Ferrari, let alone anything else Italian.
It was really embarassing when the Italian owners of the Alfa Romeo Giula prototype came up... he asked the daughter her name, she would say 'Dora' with a thick accent, he would say, 'yes, you are the Daughter, but what is your name?'. Geez.

 

I haven't been to the Concourso since it moved from Quail Lodge. It's too bad the traffic/parking has been such a pain the last two years BUT absolutly nowhere else will you see the number and quality of Ferrari's, Maserati's, Alfa's, Iso's, Bizzarrine's, Osca's, Fiat's, Lancia's, Lamborghini's and more that are present there. I'm flying out next year and hope the conditions improve but if they don't it'll still be a fantastic show - I'll just have to gripe about the parking with everyone else.

 

We left our motel on Munras about 10:00 and drove right in with no problems with the VIP B pass. They pulled us off the road into a field near one of the greens, and though dusty, was a short walk up the hill to the entrance. We had a nice meal and rest at the Gold Tent, and thought it was worth the extra price. Leaving at 3:30 was a pain, as we were in a single file line heading to the highway for 20 minutes. As a first-timer, I had a great day, and was amazed at the number of cars.

 

Ditto DIGMAN52! We had a great time and left the B parking around 6:00pm, I think, after drinking a few glasses of wine, no wating. I do understand the line to get in if you were showing a car was really long, but we pulled right into VIP B parking at 8:45am. In general the show was great!
Ciao,
Jim

 

I exited highway 1 at the 12th street exit (I was exhibiting) at 7:45am, and wasn't on the green until 9:15am. By that time, there was still a significant amount of exhibitor cars still not on the green.

Kudos to the guy in the Lamborghini LM002 who drove on the sidewalk, then cut through low lying trees and some thick brush to drive right on the green.