The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is a judged competition before it is an awards show. Its Sunday field is assembled through an invitation process, divided into classes, reviewed by two kinds of judges, and narrowed to class winners before the final Best of Show vote.
That process makes the 2026 event easier to understand. Ferrari being featured does not mean a Ferrari automatically wins. A car appearing on the field does not mean it won its class. Completing the Tour d’Elegance can matter in a class tie, but it does not award Best of Show by itself.
The 75th Concours is scheduled for Sunday, August 16, 2026. The show field opens to credentialed spectators at 5:30 a.m., judging begins at 8 a.m., and the awards ceremony runs from 1:30 to 5 p.m. All times below are Pacific.
How it developed
Concours Sunday from field opening to awards
Credentialed spectator access begins
The show field opens to spectators who hold the required credential.
Judging begins
Class and Honorary Judge teams begin their work across the designated classes.
Judging forms are due
The official judge schedule requires completed forms to be turned in for review.
Awards and live show
Class awards lead toward the vote and announcement for Best of Show.
The 75th event is the Sunday competition
The official event page calls August 16 the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It says the event began in 1950 and places the competing collector cars on the 18th fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links.
“75th” describes the event count used by the organizer. It should not be converted into a different anniversary calculation or applied to every program in Pebble Beach Automotive Week.
The distinction also matters for access. Concours Sunday is a credentialed show field. Concours Village, the Tour d’Elegance, RetroAuto, forums, auctions, manufacturer displays, and other programs have their own dates and entry terms.
Cars reach the field through selection
The official entrant process begins well before August. Applications are due near the beginning of January, and the Concours Selection Committee meets in February to decide which cars receive invitations. The organizer says most applicants are notified by April.
The stated selection policy gives preference to cars that have not previously appeared at Pebble Beach or another major concours. It also generally prevents a car from returning to the Pebble Beach show field within ten years unless it has changed ownership and been freshly restored, or qualifies as an original preservation car.
Those rules help explain why the field is curated, but they are not a complete public entrant list. The class page names categories. It does not establish that every hoped-for car, exact chassis, or rumored debut will appear.
The organizer also says an accepted car cannot be shown at another public car show, display, event, or auction during August before the Concours, with an exception for certain cars participating in the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion.
Two judge groups look for different qualities
The official judging page separates two roles.
Class Judges focus first on originality and authenticity. Their work asks whether a car has been properly preserved or restored within its category.
Honorary Judges approach the field with an eye on elegance. The two groups work together over their assigned classes, but their stated emphases are not interchangeable. A car’s design presence does not erase the authenticity review, and an exact restoration is not described as an automatic elegance award.
The event page uses the broader phrase “elegance, technical merit, and history.” The judge page supplies the more precise process language used here.
Scope and limits
How a car reaches Best of Show
| Stage | What the official process establishes | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation | A selection committee vets applications for a place in the August competition. | The current class list is not a final public roster of every car that will appear. |
| Class judging | Class Judges focus first on originality and authenticity, including preservation or restoration. | This stage does not make every class winner eligible across unrelated classes or years. |
| Honorary judging | Honorary Judges approach the field with an eye on elegance. | Elegance does not replace the separate authenticity and originality review. |
| Best of Show | Only class winners advance; the eligible car with the most final-round votes is named Best of Show. | A featured marque or coachbuilder does not receive the top award automatically. |
Best of Show starts with a class win
A car must first win its class to be eligible for Best of Show.
After the class winners are announced and reviewed, a final voting group can select from those cars. The organizer identifies that group as the Chief Judge, Chief Honorary Judge, each Chief Class Judge, each Honorary Judge team leader, and selected Class Judges. The eligible car with the most votes is named Best of Show.
That sequence prevents a common reading error. Best of Show is not a direct vote across every invited car at dawn. The class result is the gate into the final decision.
Thursday’s Tour can break a later class tie
The Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance is scheduled for Thursday, August 13. The organizer says more than 150 Concours entrants are expected to travel from Pebble Beach along 17-Mile Drive and Highway 1 toward Big Sur before returning.
The Tour is not only a moving preview. The official record says a car that successfully completes it receives the advantage if it later ties in its class at the Concours.
That advantage is narrow. Completing the Tour does not replace Sunday judging, guarantee a class victory, or place a car directly into the Best of Show vote. It resolves a later class tie.
The public may view the Tour without a fee at designated points. Cars begin lining up before 7 a.m. and are scheduled to depart at 9:30 a.m., subject to a final organizer check.
Ferrari and Vignale lead the 2026 program
The 2026 featured-classes record names Ferrari as the primary featured marque and Vignale as the featured coachbuilder.
The Ferrari program includes a special focus on Chinetti and North American Racing Team competition cars. The current class list separates Ferrari NART competition cars, Le Mans winners, grand touring cars, and Vignale-bodied Ferraris.
Vignale also receives its own class beyond the Ferrari-specific group. The separate class reflects the coachbuilder’s work across multiple Italian chassis, not only Ferrari.
The organizer identifies three new 2026 special-class directions:
- Early American Speedsters from before World War I
- Classic Streamliners from before World War II
- Japanese Motorsports
The broader current list also includes preservation classes, American and European classics, Pebble Beach Road Race cars, postwar sports and touring categories, a land-speed-record class, and Historic Jaguars.
These are program and class definitions, not a final roster. The entrant page explicitly says the proposed classes and features may change as submissions are received.
Sunday moves from inspection to awards
The field opens to credentialed spectators at 5:30 a.m. The official judge schedule places a judges’ meeting at 7:30 and the start of field judging at 8. Completed judging forms are due for review at 11.
The awards ceremony and live show run from 1:30 to 5 p.m.
The morning and afternoon therefore serve different purposes. Early access shows the field before results. Morning judging determines the class pathway. The afternoon presents awards and the final Best of Show decision.
The free Village is not the judged field
Concours Village is scheduled from Thursday, August 13, through Sunday, August 16. The organizer lists 8 a.m.–6 p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 8 a.m.–6 p.m. Sunday.
The Village is open to the public at no cost and includes manufacturer displays, interactive space, Ride & Drives, retail, concessions, and nearby programs. It sits across from the Pebble Beach Auctions at Forest Lake Road and Stevenson Drive.
That no-cost access does not include the credentialed Concours field. It also does not establish that parking, transportation, every Ride & Drive, the auctions, or every adjacent program is free.
The separate RetroAuto page now lists the same 8 a.m. Thursday opening as the broader Village page. That alignment resolves the one-hour discrepancy recorded during the July 30 review, but the hours remain subject to another organizer check before publication.
The official directions page says access to 17-Mile Drive will close August 13–16 to traffic unrelated to the Concours. People attending specific Concours-related events, residents, club members, normal pass holders, and visitors to open hotels, retail outlets, and restaurants remain eligible for access under the organizer’s current instructions. The organizer says that page will continue to be updated as the event approaches.
What is not established yet
The reviewed official records do not establish:
- a final public roster of every 2026 entrant;
- which car will win a class or Best of Show;
- a final list of concepts, debuts, or manufacturer displays;
- that every proposed class will remain unchanged;
- that every ticket or hospitality product will remain available; or
- that an organizer forecast has already happened.
Those are publication-day or post-event facts. A human reviewer must recheck the exact class list, schedule, access instructions, and event status before this candidate can move beyond review.
No correction has been recorded at this checkpoint.