The 2016 Niello Concours at Serrano
October at the Serrano Country Club in El Dorado Hills California can only mean one thing. Grown adults will spend a chilly morning spraying, wiping, buffing, polishing and waxing their mechanical masterpieces for the annual Niello Concours at Serrano, now in its 13th year.
If you arrive early enough to see the cars being placed, you can witness the attention owners give to their cars in preparation for the judging that will occur later in the day. No surface goes untouched as car owners go over, in in great detail, every square inch of body panel, or chrome bit. The Niello Concours is an event worth attending as a visitor will see some of the best presented and prepared cars from Northern California. Its not just behemoth and historic trailer queens at this show. It is a mix of modern and classic. Protected in a hermetically sealed garage (Ok, maybe not sealed), versus some that are driven daily (OK, weekly). There is a little something for everyone.
This year, the featured marque was Lincoln Automobiles with an extra bonus in the form of a special tribute to 45 years of the De Tomaso Pantera, the mid-engined Italian car from an American designer, Tom Tjaarda. The grand marshal for the concours was Tom Matano, a car designer and director of the School of Industrial Design at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Matano is considered the father of the Mazda MX-5.
If you have any questions about the quantity or quality of the cars at the event, we'll let our gallery (below) speak for itself.
We counted a total of 23 De Tomaso Pantera's at the Concours, and we may have missed a few.
Aston Martin of Walnut Creek displayed the not yet released Aston Martin DB 11.
McLaren of San Francisco arrived with a pair of McLaren 570GTs.
The owner of this Ferrari 308 daily drives his car and has racked up over 220K miles.
