Begun inside Windsor Castle in 2012, the Concours of Elegance brings more than sixty of the rarest cars in the world, many unseen in Britain, to Hampton Court Palace.
The Concours of Elegance returns to Hampton Court Palace in East Molesey, Surrey, from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 September 2027. More than sixty rare historic cars fill the palace gardens.
Thorough Events staged the first edition inside the walls of Windsor Castle in September 2012, sixty historic cars drawn up as a tribute to the Diamond Jubilee. It moved to the garden of St James’s Palace in 2013 and reached Hampton Court in 2014.
The concours d’élégance is older than the motor car. It began in seventeenth-century France, when the aristocracy paraded ornate carriages through the parks of Paris.
The principal field is invited rather than entered, and many of the cars asked to Hampton Court have never been shown in Britain. The Grand Départ, the field’s convoy out through the crowd, has run since the second year. The 2026 Best in Show went to a 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK.
Around the main field, the 2027 edition keeps two added classes. The Thirty Under 30 Concours welcomes any car built between 1900 and 1999 for younger owners. The Levitt Concours, named for the Edwardian racer Dorothy Levitt, gathers cars owned and driven by women.