A general concours question

I understand your point, but the judging guidelines are not meant to encourage owners to not just store their cars away only to place them on show fields once or twice a year. Laws and regulations necessitate foreign cars to comply. The reality is that there are so few of these cars an exception written in the judging guidelines makes sense, which, as I read them, seems to exist.

 

Oh lord. Anyhow, we move on.

 

A little harsh, don't you think? I love the process of working on and restoring a car to a high standard. While I don't do concours or car shows, I understand the pride that comes with perfecting a car. Isn't a good portion of this forum a virtual concours anyways? I hope owners don't stop, I enjoy looking at other peoples' pride and joy.

 

Paul,

As has been mentioned before there can be great variation in the quality of the judging at anything less than the FCA International Meet, Cavallino and Pebble Beach. At those places they are using the full IAC/PFA standards with the latest guidance and the judges themselves are "qualified". Note that you mentioned having 2 judges while the full requirement is for 3 per car that tells me that they were working under some "almost" standard. As has been alluded to, the judges you did have may not have be fully accredited by the IAC/PFA and/or their specialty is not your specific model. The instructions given to the judges by the event's chief judge may have their own interpretation on exactly how close to official IAC/PFA standards are to be used.

But, you also did not do your homework before attending like you have now. Now you have read the latest IAC/PFA documents and studied the point deduction matrix. I would suspect that from the judging experience of your car and seeing how others were reviewed you learned details that you were not aware of before. You have been advised here to come prepared with your own materials to prove your car.

As for someone asking Brian for his thoughts on what the point deductions should have been, an unfair question. There are only words here and no pictures to reference. The owner may think the car is absolute perfection and describe it thusly, but when viewed in detail by the most knowledgeable model specific IAC/PFA judge it could fall short in multiple areas. In this regard it is possible that the original judge's comments that the car was not Platino worthy was correct and that they slowed up on picking out each and every one of the discrepancies.

Brian (Rifledriver) did a great seminar in Dallas a couple years ago on the judging standards. Part of the day was spent waking around a 308 that initially looked to be pretty nice. But as Brian and the group looked closer and discussed variations through the model years it became quite apparent that this really was not as nice as one would initially think.

 

IAC/PFA philosophy is that our rules and judging need to be consistent with regular use and good upkeep. The preservation class is much more strict, modifications for any reason are deductions and is currently limited to cars 30 or more years old.

 

Few do. It's like anything else, you don't know what you don't know until you do it. There is a learning process and the first few times there are sometimes bumps in the road.

 

People get joy in different ways. Some are too narrow minded to accept other people are different. Don't like the show? Change channels.

 

Brian Crall. I suggested you contact him. I can only comment on your situation based on what you said here. It is hardly a complete understanding of what happened. All I can officially say is gray market modification should not be a deduction if it was expressed the IAC/PFA standards were used and then only if the complete modified form is shown. Inquire with him with all the facts. Misunderstandings happen and first it needs to be determined that is not the case here. Also as I said, if a deduction was taken for anything they should be able to specifically tell you why it was wrong and what is right. That last part should not be expected then and there on the field. At major events as a chief class judge I have a complete set of all judging notes and score sheets. After the event people who want those specifics get in touch and I have a form to fill out and if required I attach a letter to answer every deduction in detail. Providing that information is the only way you can be expected to rectify those issues and that ultimately is our goal. No one needs to get ***** slapped here, just need to be made aware that there is a misinterpretation of the rules from the looks of it.

 

For most what it is really about is preserving what they consider an important part of automotive history and sharing that with friends and interested parties.

 

At Corning this year, I met a gentleman with a 512 TR. From my uneducated brief look over the car, it really seemed like a pristine example. After the show I saw the owner and he was a bit disappointed he did not get platinum. I asked him why and he said "I have no idea - they didn't tell me".

That seemed strange to me that he was not informed on where he lost points - is this normal to not get a copy of the judging?

 

Soon after a major concours (such as the FCA National Meet or the Cavallino Classic) entrants are able to contact the chief class judge in their respective class and request the judging sheet for their car. As Brian mentioned above, one can also request a more detailed and specific explanation of deductions so that they can be corrected, if that’s the owners desire.

 

Post 37.

I got to that event before the sun was up ate lunch while I was working and left after the sun was down. There is no time at the event. We had to jump through a lot of hoops to be sure the judges were able to get to the buses on time to go to the club dinner as it was.

 

OK, thanks. I saw you walk by with a couple other judges and was going to introduce myself but you looked pretty busy. I don't know the 512 owner and have no way to contact him or I would pass on the info.

 

To the Op’s point IMO there should be judging guidelines in place to accommodate European issued cars if they are owned and driven in the United States. I've had experience at Cavallino where my 360 Spider won Platinum 3 years in a row so I know a little about the judging process. And Dave, after Cavallino I was able to contact the judges and get a copy of my “score card” if you will. Regional events sometimes are rushing around to get volunteer judges who respectfully don’t have enough experience on the details and subtleties of a particular class. As expected that can cause issues with their ability to judge a car properly.

 

There already is. There are written guidelines for all of it.

Annually there are opportunities for those people to take part in seminars and few ever do. I did a presentation at the FCA National Board meeting on this topic and few even knew we had a complete change in the scoring system when we changed the score levels for the awards. Most are still using the old system with the new point levels. People were complaining of the 97 point rule for Platinum. One complaint was minor paint issues preventing a platinum score. I told them I could show a car stripped to bare metal and still get platinum and they were a bit surprised. The information is out there, we can't help it if they do not avail themselves of the information.

 

From the IAC/PFA document.






- For judging under regular concours judging rules, the car must be presented in either complete U.S. or complete non-U.S. configuration (may depend upon the country). The car must be consistent throughout and may not mix U.S. and non-U.S. components. The few non-U.S. delivery cars converted and legalized in the U.S. must present a neat installation with a working appearance or the entire car must revert to the complete as-delivered specification.


For judging under Preservation judging rules, the car must be as delivered from the factory. The car will be judged based upon the original manufactured configuration, regardlessof where it is presently located. Cars converted to comply with U.S. (or other regulatory) specifications have been altered to some extent, and are less well preserved than cars which have not been converted

 

Your opinion was probably more heavily weighted to cosmetic condition. Our scoring is much more heavily weighted to originality. Remember, our judging is geared toward cars that get used. We really don't care about a little dirt and a few paint chips.

 

Most certainly as I don't know a 512 TR as I do a 355. I think the man told me he got a gold award (IIRC). I did not notice any obvious non-original parts. I seem to recall an OEM exhaust. Again, I did not inspect the car just looked at it for a few minutes. I think the man is from NJ.

 

I guess this thread really separates types of owners. I did a few concours and judged our local FCA events, but I could barely stand watching these over restored and prepped cars that barely ever turned a wheel in anger. But to each his own.

I went back to the race track.