Cobble Beach and Elegance

 Plan Ahead

   Last year we drove up to Kemble for the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance and even stopped in Owen Sound for the Concours d'Lemons. That trip can be revisited here: "Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance." We enjoyed it so much, we wanted to attend again this year, but could not. We hope to go next year and if you procrastinate as I do, then you might want to pay attention and think about booking now. The clock is ticking.

  That screen shot was grabbed from the Cobble website on October 23 and you have even less time now. Although September 2025 seems a long way off, it is not. If you think the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance is just another classic car show, it is not. The bit of French should have alerted you to the fact that it is more about stylish objects than excessively chromed cars and engines. Plus, Cobble Beach is a pleasant destination. It is a golf resort and community of fine homes in Kemble on the Georgian Bay. 

  All you need to know is provided by Cobble Beach, with which I have no connection. These links will supply you with fine photos, videos and additional articles to read, even if you do not think you will be able to travel up to Kemble.

Cobble Beach: The Destination.

The Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance

See the various sections. The one for "Visitors" is the place to start. Then see all the photographs of elegance and the galleries featuring winners from the past. There are also useful links to press reports and articles. The picture above was taken from one of them: "Custom-bodied 1947 Bentley Wins Cobble Beach Best of Show," Alyn Edwards, Driving, Sept. 16, 2024.

As I mentioned, I have no connection with the folks at Cobble. Also, it is worth noting that the event raises money for charities. 

Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance

Something to do in ONTARIO in September
   If you are looking for a Father's Day gift, here is a suggestion that will be appreciated by everyone in the family. Cobble Beach is in Kemble very close to Owen Sound and much closer than the other Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach in California. In both locations there are good water views in elegant settings with considerable additional elegance on display. My wife and I attended in 2023 and we both highly recommend both Cobble Beach and the Cobble Concours to anyone looking for a pleasant outing in Ontario.
   The two images here were taken from the Cobble Beach website and you should rely on these two links to learn more since the sites themselves are elegant ones providing all the information you need. Below them and the picture, I will offer some additional comments.
For information about the community where the Concours is held see: Cobble Beach. 
For all of the details related to the event see: Cobble Beach Concours de Elegance. 
The calibre of the Cobble websites provides a good indication of the high quality of the Concours held there.

A Trip to the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance
   The websites do offer all the information you will need and also additional testimonials, resources and sources for more information. Here are some observations that may be useful and which are presented in a somewhat less elegant point form. 
- We had visited Cobble Beach twice before for lunch when passing through the area, so we knew it was a nice place. It is a golf community where visitors can also stay at the inn. It is the case, however, that you probably will not be able to stay there during this weekend.
- The Concours is held over three days and visitors do not have to generally worry about being on time. Friday the participants arrive and some go touring, which would be interesting to see. On Saturday, most of the action is in Owen Sound. Sunday is the 'official day' and if you stay until the end of it, you will be rewarded since awards are given by blue blazer folks in straw hats to the Concours contestants who are sometimes dressed in period gear as they drive off the 18th fairway from which there is a fine view of Georgian Bay.
- We drove leisurely from London on a Saturday to Owen Sound and did not even go to Cobble. There were three events in Owen Sound, one of which was "Cars and Coffee" in the downtown area and included some fine vehicles, most of the kind you see at "classic" car shows, and there were car seminars at the Roxy Theatre. The "classic" cars displayed over a couple of blocks were interesting, but our favourite part was the Concours d'Lemons, in the River District where you will find the, well, "Lemons", the kind of cars one makes fun of and which the participants do by displaying humorous signs. Here is the bonus for loyal readers of MM. The Tom Thomson Art Gallery is along the same street and apart from the exhibitions, it has a bathroom and a gentleman in the lobby provided vodka and lemonade.
- On that subject (i.e. mixed drinks) the finer dining areas at Cobble Beach are a bit off limits and crowded during the Concours, but there are food trucks on fairways and one can have a G&T or cold beer while looking at the cars and the spectators.
- As mentioned, we did not go to Cobble Beach on Saturday, but went directly to where we were staying in Southampton, which sounds like the kind of place one should stay when going to a Concours. The Southampton Inn is recommended as are the Highview Food & Drink Wine Bar and Room 797, both of which are just down the street. At least they were last year.
- Sunday began with a storm so we took our time having breakfast at the Inn since one does not have to be at the Concours at an appointed time. When you do arrive, signs will direct you to a parking area, from which you will be delivered and returned by busses.
- On the very long 18th fairway you will see automobiles you will never have seen before and many about which you have not heard. The Best in Show Award was given to a 1929 Cord and the Poetry in Motion Award went to a 1930 Duesenberg while the Tom Thomson Gallery Timeless Design Award went to a Lancia Stratos. There was also a Ferguson Super Sport, of which you will not be aware because there was only one made by an Avro Arrow engineer who was laid off when Diefenbaker cancelled that project. Among all the cars with lots of horsepower there were also some horseless carriages and Adam Bari from Tillsonburg displayed three elegant motorcycles, one of which was a 1913 Flying Merkel Racer.
- The cars often arrive from far away and according to Mr. McLeese (the Show Chair and Founder) they were from fourteen states and nine provinces. He says: 
“I have got a car here that has taken me seven years to get here, I got another car that has taken me five years to get here, because you have to cajole the owners because it is a big deal for them. They spend a lot of money preparing their cars and doing the work and for some of these guys, this is their main asset, so this is a big deal for them."
- I could go on and photos were taken both by my wife and I. It is the case, however, that the website provided and many other sources offer far better, professional ones. There are also good YouTube videos. Do have a look at least.
- When the bus delivers you to Cobble Beach, you will be given a program. The one I now have from 2023 has 176 pages and  photos of the cover and the Table of Contents are shown below.

Post Script:

-As the bus winds through the lanes and by the houses at Cobble Beach you may notice a few huge trucks which transported some of the cars. Unlike the ones that deliver new cars, these keep the automobiles safely wrapped inside.



   At this point you may be thinking that all this elegance is a bit extravagant for our times, particularly if you are concerned about the environment. That is perhaps true and we should probably no longer do many of the things we do. On the other hand, more environmental harm is likely done by one Blue Jay's game if you consider all the fans who have to arrive at the stadium and the players who fly to get there.
   It is also the case that the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance supports charities and this year the beneficiary is the Owen Sound Regional Hospital Foundation. In addition, the Concours raised over the past eight years more than $800,000 for the Sunnybrook Foundation and the Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre.

Here is one of the photographs I took. See the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance & Motoring Festival website for better ones. 

A Gumball Rally

 From Toronto to Miami

  Given the current emphasis on DIVERSITY and my tendency to be contrarian, I like to occasionally offer an entry about something other than books and libraries. It is for those reasons that I now present to you some information about wealthy (mostly) white guys driving very fast in very expensive, gas-guzzling vehicles. “The horror, the horror.” 

   Surprisingly, some of this information was taken from the staid Globe and Mail, which issues from Toronto the Good, but you likely averted your eyes from the horrifying headline below, which is one of the few in the last several months that wasn’t about an apology or Hockey Canada. Homogenised reading is not good for you and it is interesting to learn that other things are happening.

“We’re Absolutely Not Going to Stick to the Speed Limit: Gumball Rally Gets Ready to Peel Out of Toronto After Showing off Cars,” Mark Richardson, June 1, 2022. The subtitle is: About 100 Pricey Cars Will Depart Toronto Headed For Detroit En Route to Their Final Destination of Miami for the Gumball 3000 Rally.

   If you are displeased by such antics, you should note that, like a walkathon, money is raised for charitable causes: 

“We’re trying to break the speed record in every leg of the race – that’s our goal,” said TJ Rinomato, a Toronto-based investment manager, driving with his best friend Will Brereton in a 1,000-horsepower Chevrolet Hennessy ZL1 Camaro. “Every mile an hour over the speed limit, we hope to raise a thousand dollars for that.”

Admittedly, more fuel will be required at the rally than at the walkathon.

“I flew up to Buffalo,” said Danny Creighton, a Florida real-estate developer driving a Dodge Ram TRX with Canadian co-driver and drag racer David Schroeder. “But the new fuel tank I put in started to have a valve issue. It started to leak fuel, so I had to send my plane down to pick up the guys who custom-made the truck in (Fort) Lauderdale, (Fla.), fly [them] back up, fly back for additional parts, come back up. We spent $50,000 in jet fuel yesterday. Then I drove it into Canada.”

Creighton’s pickup truck is hardly stock – it has six wheels on three axles and makes 800 horsepower. The new fuel tank is a 378-litre unit, additional to the existing 105-litre tank. “So when all the Ferraris and Lamborghinis are pulling over every 150, 200 miles,” he said, “the Warlord is just going to keep going down the track, cruising at 140 – rrrrrrr!” Those are American miles an hour he’s talking about, or 225 kilometres an hour."

“I think we’re getting somewhere around five miles to the gallon,” he added. Just for the record, that’s 47 litres per 100 kilometres. For comparison, a Honda Civic consumes around seven litres per 100 kilometres. 

The article also mentions that the celebrity, David Hasselholff is participating

and will drive a Pontiac Firebird and a Maserati. His luggage is travelling in a separate Cadillac Escalade. 

Sources: 

  I am sure the “Readers Comments” about the G&M, article will have addressed all the issues you also are stewing about and that there were likely very few which weren’t critical. If you go to GUMBALL3000.com, you can learn all about it and buy a deluxe edition of the book: 20 Years on the Road (£265.00).

There is also a Wikipedia entry for “The Gumball Rally.”

Some cities along the way welcomed the Gumballers. Here is the Nashville press release: “The Gumball 3000 Rally is Back With a Spectacular Route from Toronto - Miami, The 22nd Annual Gumball 3000 Rally arrives with a festival of Supercars and Superstars in Nashville on Monday, May 30 to make it a Memorial Day to remember!

They made it:

“Gumball 3000 Rally Arrives in Miami With an All-star soccer Match,” iCrowdNewswire, June, 2.

"The epic Gumball 3000 has been back in action for 2022, with an iconic line up of supercars and superstars setting the pace across North America. The rally will conclude in an epic finale in Miami on 3rd June as more than 100 incredible cars cross the finish line at David Beckham's Inter Miami stadium.

From the 27 May – 3 June 2022 the 22nd Annual Rally has travelled from Toronto to Miami. Over 100 cars – from Bugatti’s to Batmobiles – and 200+ personalities have taken part in this wacky-races-style road trip, driving 3,000 miles in just 6 days.

To conclude in true Gumball style, the rally finish will coincide with the inaugural Gumball Goodwill Charity Soccer match, taking place at the DRV PNK stadium on 2nd June. Ignition Casino will be sponsoring the match, with all the proceeds being donated to charity."

Post Script:

The Gumball Rally is not a race. Real men race in The Cannonball Run, from N.Y. to CA. It is done surreptitiously. The last time I checked, they crossed the country in about 26 hours and averaged 174 (KPH). See my post about The Cannonball Run.

The Bonus:

I happen to be reading the very good memoir by Simcoe-born Bruce McCall. The sentences below are found on p.196 when McCall mentions his friend Brock Yates:

"Yates, an automotive journalist and the nearest thing to Hunter S. Thompson I ever knew, crashed through life at speed. Brock founded the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, a flagrantly outlaw sprint from New York to Los Angeles that attracted every nutbar car maniac in America. There were no rules. Miraculously, nobody got killed. It was typical of Yates. He flicked an anarchic finger at convention everywhere he ran into it, earning such a reputation for aggression that his nickname was the Assassin."

How Did I Get Here, Bruce McCall.

McCall is an illustrator and writer whose work is often seen in the New Yorker.