On one of my frequent trips to the West Coast,  I was able to hitch a ride with Tom Sahines, of ARA, for a one day trip to Concorso Italiano. I met up with Tom before the crack of dawn on Friday morning, near San Jose, California. Tom was leading a caravan of mostly Alfas, with a Maserati Ghibli thrown in for good measure. We departed before 5:00 AM; if you're not through the gate before 7:00 AM, the backup can get pretty extreme.

We arrived just after 7:00, scooted in to the display area, and parked among all the Alfas. As always, there was the usual gaggle of ultra exotics. If you've never been to Concorso Italiano before, you can literally see dozens of every possible model of Ferrari and Lamborghini sold here in the last 20-30 years, many of them garage queens with very low miles on them. The job of the concours judge is not easy—find the tiny scratch, missed detail, or rare non-original replacement part. There are also hordes of older Ferraris, Lambos, Fiats, Maseratis, and so on, including, of course, Alfas!

I spent about half my time wandering around the various lesser marques, and the other half with the Alfas, and Alfa friends. There were some pretty special cars there, including Bonnie (the world’s fastest Spider), a GTA that was claimed to be the most successful Alfa (in terms of racing wins) ever in South America, and a few pristine Berlinas!

At the end of the day, ARA hosted a reception on-site, which was great because it meant that we didn't have to join the line of traffic heading out. We left around 7:00 and were 'home' by 9:00, which made for a long day, but loaded with fine Italian cars and Alfa friends!

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