I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a concours purist. I’m the bloke who turns up to car events in a Tesla, gets distracted by the food stalls, and then spends three times longer than planned staring at cars he had no intention of caring about. So when London Concours 2026 rolled around at the Honourable Artillery Company, running from 9th to 11th June, I wasn’t expecting it to properly get under my skin. It did.
This was the event’s 10th anniversary, which felt significant. A decade of dragging some of the world’s most extraordinary cars into a five-acre garden in the middle of the City of London, framed by glass and steel skyscrapers, is an odd idea on paper. In reality, it works beautifully. There’s something almost defiant about it. A 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C sitting on a manicured lawn with the Barbican looming in the background isn’t wrong. It’s exactly right.
The event ran across three days, each with its own character. Tuesday honoured Porsche’s engineering legacy. Wednesday was dedicated to the Jaguar XK. Thursday was Supercar Day, presented with the Drivers’ Union, and it wrapped with a Grand Depart at 7pm that I imagine was heard from Old Street to Moorgate. Over 100 exceptional vehicles across nine carefully curated concours classes, live podcast recordings including Smith and Sniff performing in front of a packed audience, and more automotive conversation than any one person can reasonably process. Here are the cars and moments that stuck with me.
Best of Show: The Countach That Deserved It
If you were going to hand a rosette to one car at London Concours 2026, there’s an argument that it was always going to be a Lamborghini. But the specific car that took Best of Show wasn’t the obvious crowd-pleaser. It was a 1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopio, and it was the right call.
The LP400 is the purest form of the Countach. Introduced in 1974 as the first production version of that impossibly dramatic wedge, it predates the flared arches and bolt-on drama of later models. The Periscopio name comes from the periscope-style rear-view mirror system, because the rearward visibility was so compromised by the design that Lamborghini had to get creative. That tells you everything about the priorities involved. It was also displayed alongside another LP400 Periscopio in the Dream Cars class, which meant the show was briefly home to two of the rarest Lamborghinis on earth at the same time.
This is the kind of car that younger generations know only from bedroom posters and video games. Seeing one in the flesh, even briefly, recalibrates your sense of what “extreme” actually means. The dimensions are more modest than you expect. The presence is not.
The Hypercars Class: A Decade of Excess on One Lawn
The Hypercars class, presented by Apollo Capital, was the kind of line-up that makes you question your life choices in the best possible way. The class winner was a 2016 Lamborghini Centenario. Highly commended went to a 2010 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport and the 2024 Gordon Murray Automotive T.50.
The T.50 deserves a moment. Gordon Murray’s masterpiece is what happens when an engineer who designed Formula One cars is given no compromises and a blank sheet of paper. The central-mounted fan at the rear is functional, not decorative. Standing next to it at London Concours, surrounded by Koenigseggs and a Ferrari F40, it still managed to feel like the most considered object in the room.
The F40 was there too, as it always should be. No list of hypercars is complete without one, and no explanation is required.
Other highlights in the class included the 2019 Lamborghini Sián FKP 37, the 2025 Aston Martin Valhalla, the 2025 Koenigsegg Jesko, and the 2026 Mercedes-AMG One. The latter is the car that put an actual Formula One hybrid powertrain into a road car, and if you need to know what that involved in terms of engineering heroics, look up the development story. It’s extraordinary.
The Alfa Romeo Class: Passion in Partnership with GRRC
London Concours teamed up with the Goodwood Road Racing Club to dedicate an entire class to Alfa Romeo, and it was one of the most emotionally charged corners of the event. Alfa does this to people. You don’t just appreciate an Alfa Romeo, you feel it.
The oldest cars in the class were a pair of 1930s 8Cs, including a 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C-2300. This is a car from a marque that claimed four consecutive victories at Le Mans starting in 1931. It belongs to a moment in motorsport history when Italian engineering was simply in a different dimension. Seeing one in person is a reminder of how far the craft of building a racing car has come, and also how much soul has occasionally been lost along the way.
The celebrity connection that drew plenty of attention was a 1972 Alfa Romeo Montreal that once belonged to Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. It’s one of fewer than 200 right-hand-drive examples ever built. The Montreal is a car that tends to be underappreciated. It sits in the shadow of the more famous Italian exotica of its era, but the styling and the relatively modest production numbers make it genuinely special.
The class also featured the wedge-shaped 1977 Alfetta GTV 2.0, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the sharp-lined Alfa Romeo RZ nicknamed Il Mostro (The Monster), penned by Robert Opron and Antonio Castellana, and modern entries including a Brera and a V6-powered Giulia Quadrifoglio. That last car is one I’ve followed since it launched. The sound from that V6 at full chat is one of the best things in the automotive world.
Dream Cars and the Rod Stewart Diablo
The Dream Cars class had a story attached to it that made it impossible to walk past. A 1997 Lamborghini Diablo Roadster, once owned by Rod Stewart, sat on the lawn alongside a De Tomaso Pantera and a Ferrari 599GTO Aperta. The provenance alone is worth something. The Diablo was the poster car for an entire generation, and one that spent time in the garage of a rock legend has a particular kind of energy about it.
The De Tomaso Pantera is criminally underrated in popular automotive culture. It was built to take on Ferrari and Maserati, used a Ford V8, and was sold through Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in the United States. It is bizarre, brilliant, and beautiful. Its presence in the Dream Cars class felt right.
London Concours 2026 at a Glance
| Class | Notable Entries | Class Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Hypercars | T.50, Koenigsegg Jesko, AMG One, F40 | 2016 Lamborghini Centenario |
| Dream Cars | Diablo Roadster (ex-Rod Stewart), Pantera | Countach LP400 (Best of Show) |
| Alfa Romeo | 1933 8C-2300, Montreal (ex-Simon Le Bon), Giulia QV | Not individually listed |
| Porsche Sonderwunsch | Bespoke factory-commissioned Porsches | Not individually listed |
| American Muscle | Classic and modern US performance cars | Not individually listed |
| Group A Rally Cars | Touring car and rally legends | Not individually listed |
Hype Cycle Check
LIKELY TO LAST: London Concours itself. Ten years in, the format is proven. An intimate urban setting, carefully curated classes, and a three-day structure that gives each day a distinct identity. This isn’t going anywhere, and nor should it.
WATCH CLOSELY: The integration of modern hypercars alongside pre-war classics. The 2026 Mercedes-AMG One sharing a lawn with a 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C is a genuinely interesting juxtaposition. As the hypercar era matures and electric performance cars become a larger part of the conversation, how events like London Concours balance heritage and modernity will shape their relevance.
VAPOURWARE RISK: The idea that concours events remain purely about combustion. London Concours hasn’t gone fully electric in its curation, and the crowd reaction to internal combustion in 2026 remains strong. But the EV conversation is coming. Whether the community embraces it gracefully or digs in defensively remains to be seen.
What This Means for CES 2027
London Concours and CES exist at opposite ends of the automotive spectrum. One is handbuilt leather and naturally aspirated engines, the other is concept renders and battery chemistry slides. But they’re telling the same story from different directions. The cars I saw at the HAC in June represent the peak of what combustion engineering achieved. CES 2027 will almost certainly double down on what comes next: solid-state batteries, software-defined vehicles, autonomous everything.
The interesting thing is that the Countach that won Best of Show and the AMG One that turned heads in the Hypercars class both represent moments where engineering obsession produced something extraordinary. The question CES 2027 will be asking is whether software and silicon can produce that same feeling. I suspect the answer will be “almost, but not quite yet”, and the gap between almost and actually will be the defining automotive conversation of the next few years.
What to Watch
1. The Lamborghini Centenario market. The London Concours class win will not go unnoticed by collectors and auction houses.
2. Alfa Romeo’s revival narrative. Dedicating an entire class to Alfa, in partnership with GRRC, felt like a statement about the marque’s place in the enthusiast community. With new models in the pipeline, watch how Alfa uses this cultural momentum.
3. Gordon Murray Automotive’s trajectory. The T.50 picking up Highly Commended at a prestige concours adds to a growing body of recognition. GMA is a small manufacturer with enormous ambitions, and 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for them.
4. London Concours 2027 themes. The 10th anniversary edition set a high bar. The organisers will need to find a fresh angle for next year, whether that’s a deeper EV integration, a new marque partnership, or an expanded format. Worth watching from the moment early announcements drop.
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