Fifty glorious Italian cars are set to take part in the inaugural Anantara Concorso Roma on April 24-27, 2025, marking 100 years since the Eternal City held its very first concours d’elegance. Presented by UBS and supported by Octane magazine, RM Sotheby’s and Technogym, the Anantara Concorso Roma echoes the Concorso Romano delle Carrozzerie, which took place in April 1926. The new event was created by car collector and chairman of Anantara Hotels & Resorts’ parent company, Minor International, Bill Heinecke.
“We will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first-ever Rome concours – the Concorso Romano delle Carrozzerie – which was held in April 1926 at the Terrazza del Pincio in the gardens of Villa Borghese, just metres away from the setting for the 2025 Anantara Concorso Roma, presented by UBS,” explained concours director Jeremy Jackson-Sytner. “That event was actually held three years prior to the first Coppa d’Oro Villa d’Este on Lake Como, which was in 1929, and period film footage of the Pincio-based shows feature huge crowds swarming around the many elegant coachbuilt cars of the day.
“One sequence from 1929 includes the winner of the Placca d’Oro, Signora Assunta Bruchi Ponzo, piloting her 1928 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A seven-passenger saloon by Cesare Sala, a monster of a car with a 7.3-litre straight-eight that was ‘guaranteed’ to do 145km/h.”
Fittingly, all of the concours cars will be Italian, and the jury panel will be led by Dr Adolfo Orsi Jr and features Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Massimo Delbò, François Melcion, Stefano Pasini, Laura Kukuk, Donald Osborne and Joanne Marshall.
Headline cars are being revealed almost daily, including the sensational two-time Le Mans-winning 1963 Ferrari 275 P and the 1957 Ferrari 500 TRC Scaglietti Barchetta, which won the 2023 Pebble Beach Ferrari Competition class. An exceptionally early – in fact, pre-Romeo – Alfa 20-30 HP Torpedo of 1914 will also be in attendance. The 20-30 HP Torpedo was, in fact, the first model to bear the Alfa Romeo badge, but this 1914 example predates its creation. Bodied by Falco after World War I, it is set to make its concours debut.
“The car is fully matching in all respects, beautifully restored on the basis of a totally original car and has never been shown anywhere. It had been hiding in a small collection in Austria. The car is now in The Netherlands, and Anantara Concorso Roma will give it its world debut,” Jackson-Sytner explained.
The 1914 Alfa will not be the oldest car in the concours, however. Instead, that plaudit goes to the 1902 FIAT 12HP Ignazio Florio. The youngest car confirmed for display at the time of writing is a 2005 Maserati MC12 Stradale.
While the event is named after the Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome, where owners are expected to stay, the concours will take place at Rome’s neoclassical Casina Valadier, offering stunning views across the city.
On Friday morning, participating cars will embark on the Giro d’Anantara, a 20-mile drive starting from Piazza della Repubblica outside the Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome hotel, winding through the city’s streets and continuing on to Frascati and Villa Aldobrandini.
For more information, visit the Concorso website here.
