A Children’s Choice Award is a prize where kids pick their favorite car. It’s basically the kids’ version of a “best car” award at the show.
Term
special roaster
A roadster is an open-top car, usually without a hard roof. The host is describing a special version of the 1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K with that kind of open-body style.
Provenance history means the car’s “paper trail”—who owned it and what its background is. For collectors and car shows, that history helps prove the car’s story is real and important.
A restomod is an older car that’s been fixed up, but also upgraded with modern parts. It keeps the classic style, but tries to make it drive and feel better than the original.
In this conversation, “Concord” refers to car-show events where people bring cars to be displayed and judged. The host is saying it’s getting harder for certain owners and cars to participate.
“Pre-war cars” refers to automobiles built before World War II. They’re often harder to maintain today because many parts are scarce, and fewer specialists and owners remain who have the knowledge and access to original components.
“Marquee cars” are the big-name cars—usually the most famous or valuable ones at a show. When they’re extremely expensive, owners may avoid taking them out because it costs more and carries more risk.
Here, “insurance” is the coverage cost for expensive cars. If a car is worth a lot, moving it to events can raise the risk and the insurance cost, so owners may keep them at home.
A trailer is how you haul a car instead of driving it. For expensive classic cars, owners often trailer them to shows, but now the cost and risk can be higher.
A “special rider” is extra insurance coverage added to a policy for a specific situation. In this case, it likely means coverage for taking a valuable car to an event.
The Mercury Villager is a minivan, meaning it’s a family-focused vehicle built to carry people and cargo comfortably. It was made for everyday driving rather than sports performance. People might mention it because it’s a distinctive model from the minivan era.
The Mazda RX-7 is a sports car from Mazda that’s famous for a unique engine design. Instead of a normal piston engine, it uses a rotary engine, and people often love it for driving feel and mod potential.
“Lambo” is a casual nickname for Lamborghini, a brand that makes expensive supercars. The speaker is saying someone saw a Lamborghini on the show field and wanted it.
The RAC is a long-established UK organization for car enthusiasts and motorists. The host brought it up as a way he got involved in car culture while living in London.
The Renault Sport Spider is a small open-top sports car, meaning you can drive with the top down. It’s made to feel sporty and fun on the road. People bring it up when they’re talking about roadsters they want to own or compare.
Term
Spider Veloce
“Veloce” is Italian for “fast.” When people say “Spider Veloce,” they mean a sportier, more performance-oriented version of that Alfa Romeo Spider.
This is a 1957 AC Ace-based car that was turned into a race car. The important part is that it wasn’t just a normal classic—it was modified and used for racing.
The AC Cobra is the famous AC-based sports car that Carroll Shelby helped turn into a V8-powered legend. The host is connecting the Cobra’s look and chassis roots back to the AC Ace.
The Shelby Cobra is a classic sports car known for being fast and exciting. It’s associated with Carroll Shelby and is built with a focus on road-racing performance. People talk about it because it has an iconic design and a strong racing history.
This means the car has a manual gearbox with four gears, and the top gear is designed to let the engine spin slower at speed. That can make the car easier to drive without revving as high.
A road rally car is a car prepared for rally events where you drive a route on roads, often with navigation. The goal is usually to finish the event reliably and consistently, not just to go as fast as possible.
Term
Fulva
“Fulva” sounds like a specific engine or performance setup that was installed in the car before. It’s the kind of detail enthusiasts mention because it affects how the car makes power and how it’s raced.
Term
HMSA
HMSA is a racing series/club the speaker raced with. It’s the kind of group that organizes races for older cars so they can compete in the same events.
Term
CSRG
CSRG is another racing group/series the speaker raced in. These acronyms usually stand for organizations that put on races for specific classes of cars.
Term
middle of the pack
“Middle of the pack” is a racing placement description meaning the car is competitive enough to finish regularly but not consistently challenging for the top positions. In motorsport terms, it often reflects a balance of power, setup, and driver pace relative to the field.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. It’s designed to be fast and fun to drive, and it has been around for many years. People talk about it a lot because there are many different versions that collectors look for.
BAT is short for Bring a Trailer, a website where people buy and sell cars through online auctions. It’s popular with car enthusiasts because the listings tend to be interesting cars, not just basic transportation.
The Audi R8 is a supercar made by Audi. In 2009, it was the first-generation R8, and it’s known for being a real mid-engine sports car that still feels usable day to day.
The Ferrari 275 GTB is a famous old Ferrari. It’s known for its smooth V12 engine and classic design, and it’s the kind of car car people get excited about seeing in person.
The Ford Mustang is a sports car from Ford that’s known for its powerful engines and classic styling. It’s been made for a long time, so there are many different versions. People often mention it because it’s easy to recognize and has a big enthusiast following.
The Porsche 914 is a sports car made by Porsche with the engine placed in the middle of the car. That layout helps it handle more like a true sports car. It’s talked about because it’s a recognizable Porsche model with a dedicated fan base.
This is a 1970 Mini Cooper S, a small classic British car that’s famous for being fun and agile. The speaker’s specific one is an Australian version with right-hand drive, so some parts and exterior details are different from other countries’ Minis.
Right-hand drive just means the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. It’s common in countries that drive on the left, and it can also change some parts and layout details versus left-hand-drive cars.
Rain gutters are the little channels along the roof that catch water and route it away from the car. Different versions of the same model can have slightly different gutter shapes.
Window handles are the knobs or levers you use to move the car’s windows. The speaker is saying the Australian version used different handle parts than other versions.
Door handles are the outside parts you grab to open the doors. The speaker is pointing out that the Australian version had different door-handle hardware than other Minis.
The exterior latch is the part that the outside door handle works to lock or unlock the door. The speaker is saying the Australian car used different latch hardware.
LIVE
to bring a trailer podcast. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the BAT podcast. This is Randy
Nonenberg, co-founder and bring a trailer here at BAT HQ in San Francisco. I have a
super special guest today, Rob Fisher joining me. Rob Fisher is the chairman of the Hillsboro
Concorde Elegance Foundation and past chairman of other parts of that show. That's a local
show here in the Bay Area. It is esteemed for a number of reasons, one of which is,
Rob, give me the right title here, longest continually running concor, not just in California.
In the world. In the world because it gets that continuously running because they never took a
year off since the founding when, when was it founded? 1956. 1956, it started all the way till
2026. It'll be a bit of an anniversary year and BAT is going to be there at the concor for our
first time. I'm excited. Different folks on staff have attended different times, but now we get
to have the BAT presence and the show is going to be a great show. And thanks for joining us on
the podcast. Great to be here. I'm excited to be here. You've been to BAT HQ before. You're also,
you call yourself an OG BAT user, which I love hearing. And then we'll talk about the show,
which is coming up. Give us the date on the show, June 28th, which is coming here pretty quick.
Crystal Springs Golf Course off 280. That's right. And it's actually a concor weekend. So we have a
kickoff party on the 26th, where we have what we call the Start Your Engines Kickoff Party. And
that is a really special event that's held at a private private car collection club located in
Burley Game. So it's a really neat venue that has fabulous food. And the honorary judges will be
there and a bunch of entrants and anyone else who wants to come kind of help kick off the weekend.
And then Saturday morning, we have the Tour d'Elegance, which is always a sellout as well,
where we have upwards of 80 to 100 cars that queue up in the morning in Burley Game and then
take off on a great drive. And this year, we're going to go see a very, very special private
collection. And after viewing that collection, we'll end up back in Hillsborough at a private
estate that has not been used before for us on the tour. And it's going to be an unbelievable
facility, just outstanding place to kick back, have some great food and talk about the drive
they did that day. And then on Sunday, we've got the concor, our 70th annual.
Fantastic. I'm super excited about the Saturday. I wasn't going to let you gloss past that anymore
because I'm excited to be there. I love driving. I've done some driving with you before at
different events. The Saturday event, I'm hoping to do with my dad and jump in a car and get to
do that and see those special spots you're talking about. It sounds like it'll be pretty terrific.
It's a lot of fun because people bring everything from their...
These are show cars. These are cars that will be in the show. This is just civilian other cars.
It could be anything, but you'd be amazed. I mean, we've had everything from SP2 Ferrari to
250 GTO to last year, we had the Wiener Mobile. And by the way, it was amazing because it took me
over 10 years. It's a little unknown secret. You have to apply online and there are five
Wiener mobiles all over the country. Apply for what? To have them come to your event.
Oh, they came to the event. So they actually came to the event.
They serve food or they give people t-shirts or what do they do?
They were just the greatest. It was the greatest thing ever. I have to tell you,
of all the stuff I've done with the concor, we usually rate my happiness with the event.
The types of cars that came, we get something really special or we have a special person
attending or what have you. But when I got that email telling me that the Wiener Mobile
was going to be coming, I absolutely flipped out. In fact, I yelled and my wife's like,
are you okay? What's going on? And I'm like, we got the Wiener Mobile.
So did that one pull onto the lawn on Sunday? Oh, yeah. Okay. What class was it in or what was it
doing? It was just parked over on the side. Actually, by the way, it was parked over where
you guys are going to be. Oh, okay. Great. We're in the one year later...
Premier spot. Yeah, there you go.
I hope it's Premier and it's not just the hot dog parking.
No. And the Wiener Mobile won the Children's Choice Award, as you would expect.
But it was great. They let us tour inside of it. The thing was actually pretty amazing,
a vehicle. And I got a little bit of history from the gals and there were two women and they're
just out of college and they just were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and just...
How far it could? Where was it out of? So how?
It came out of LA. So they flew in. One of them was from Wisconsin, the other one from
South Carolina. So they met like in LA and they were attached to the hip for a couple of months
driving the Wiener Mobile all over the place. Okay. Now, you've got to be careful of not
set expectation that anybody shows up this year. It's going to be the Wiener Mobile show.
That was a one and done. Is that right? That was a one and done.
Okay. But sounds like a highlight.
It was. And I'm sure you got some aces up your sleeve for what's going to show up this year.
But why don't you tell people a little bit about the show? Like either the classes or the structure
or what's going on or why has it been so long-standing when all these other shows have come
and gone. This one is still right up there as one to see.
That's a great question. I think... Well, first, I'll just talk about the show.
So the show this year, it is our 70th anniversary. And it started in 1956 and it was basically a
humble little show. And we can talk more about the history in a minute. But it is basically...
The reason it has stayed, I think, as long as it has is because of the incredible amount of
community support. We're 100% volunteer organization, always have been, probably always will be.
And we talk about our group as being kind of small but mighty. I mean, our actual operating
committee that puts the show on is like 25 people. It swells to about 60 on the day because of
volunteers that will come and help out. But otherwise, just generally speaking, we're
a pretty small little crew that get together once a month. But we got great support from the
community. But we also have great support from the collectors and the car owners.
Because we bring real quality judging. We have a phenomenal 70-year relationship with the SCCA
who brings a tremendous number of judges for us as well as Ferrari Club of America, Rolls Royce
Bentley, and then the Classic Car Club of America. And this year, the basic same kind of format,
we've got about 23, 24 judged classes. We have three or four special displays. And then we have a
mix of presentations. We've got an automotive seminar where we'll be talking potentially
with yourself, talking about your story and the story behind Bring a Trailer. And we also have
a new car display where we joke about them being potentially the concor entries in 30, 35 years.
They bring over the modern cars from the new car display, the guys that are on the field showing
their cars off, all the current models. One of the things we're also featuring is 100th anniversary
of Mercedes-Benz. Oh, great. And what's really neat about that is I was doing some research. You
know, you're always 689 months out, 10 months out ahead of the show. You start looking
about things that you might be featuring. And I was doing some research and found that Mercedes-Benz
was founded on June 28th, 1926. And our show is June 28th, 2026. So 100 years to the day,
Mercedes-Benz was formed. So we've got three classes of Mercedes. And we've got a bunch of
different really exciting, interesting Mercedes that I think everything from pre-war spectacular
big cars all the way up to late 20s. And is it secret? I mean, are you allowed to say a car
that's coming or people are supposed to show up and be amazed? You're not supposed to really
let the cat out of the bag until they show up. Well, no, we're actually doing a press release on
one of them. So the Keller Collection, which I'm sure you know, it has premier Mercedes-Benz.
You've never snuffed me in there, though. I've tried to ride a few different coattails to try
to get in and see that deal. But never, my invite always gets lost in the mail, you know.
Let's talk. It is spectacular. It's unbelievable. But, you know, they have all kinds of different
cars, but they're well known for their, mostly known for their Mercedes collection.
And so we're getting this beautiful 1939 540K special roaster that has unbelievable
provenance history, royal history. And we're just very grateful, very thankful to them for
bringing the cars out. You know, it's a really interesting challenge, too, for Concord. And
you were talking about longevity. And, you know, it's not hard to get a lot of modern cars. And
you see a lot of those types of shows are still very popular these days. You know,
tuner shows, low rider, modified hot rod, you know, resto mods. The good guys are still going
really, really strong. But traditional Concord, which the core of that is unmodified, you know,
original, that's getting harder and to get people that have their cars like
that. And when you start talking about the really older cars, the pre-war cars, a lot of the folks
that owned those no longer own them have passed away. You can't work on them, can't get parts.
And so it's getting harder and harder for those cars to, you know, come to the shows.
And then when you talk about some of these, you know, these marquee cars, what really is
interesting is some of those have become so valuable that it's too expensive to take them out,
you know, because of the insurance. And before it used to be, yeah, we'll just put it on a trailer
and we'll take it. But because of, again, like values and insurance and risk and all that kind
of stuff, a lot of these like museums used to participate quite a lot. Now, very few take
their cars out anymore, unless they get a special rider. And frankly, they a lot of times elast the
Concord itself to pay for that. And sure, all these expensive cars, yeah.
Or pay for the transport, gas, hotels. And, you know, we work on a
nothing budget. I mean, we're very razor thin. Everything we make net, we give to our charities.
And so that creates a bit of a challenge. I mean, we've lost two Concord this year.
The Nilo Serrano Concord is no longer happening, which normally happens in October. And the
Ferndale Concord is not happening. So there's now just two Northern California and not County
Pebble Concord now. So it's tough. But our sponsors love us. We love them. And we continue to add
and grow our sponsorship support, which is great. Frankly, thank you. Bring a trailer on.
I mean, it really makes a difference because the expenses of putting on these shows is also
astronomical. You know, food and the tents and again, the insurance, things like that,
all of those things continue to rise. And as an event planner, it's really hard to also say,
for example, raise your ticket prices commensurate to what your expenses have gone up. Same thing
with the entry fees. You know, at some point, you get this inverse relationship and people start
dropping off. And fortunately, we've had a nice balance with that. But that's because
we've been able to, as prices have increased, fortunately, we've added sponsors to help fill
that void. But it's tough. You know, there's a lot of competition for those dollars, you know,
and you pay $1,000 to sponsor a class and might not seem like a whole lot, but you know, people
can put that $1,000 to a lot of different uses. Yep. And off the bottom line, what you're talking
about about the rest going to charity, right? Like if you get charged that or don't net that,
yeah, it really makes a different dynamic for what's left over at the end, which is great.
Tell us about the charities that it supports. Sure. We support charities called Ability Path,
which is interesting. That's over 100-year-old charity that was founded in Hillsborough.
And it is a charity that specializes in helping children and adults that are neurodivergent.
And it's amazing. They do training, occupational therapy. They do OJT on the job, you know,
help people get jobs. They're just a phenomenal organization. It's headed up by Brian Knight.
He was at Electronic Arts, who, of all things, he was my Cross the Street neighbor when we
raised our kids together in Baywood and in San Mateo. And just as luck would have it,
he went, had a great career. Now he's serving the communities, CDOs, Flint to be there.
Second charity is the Guardsmen, San Francisco Guardsmen, and they send underprivileged children
to camp. Unbelievable organization. Again, been around for decades. And then our last charity
is the Hillsborough Schools Foundation. And that's really kind of our, you know, our OJ
as well. It was originally the Hillsborough Parents' Group or something like that.
That started in 1956. So those three primary charities, and we work really hard for them.
And they help us as well. They provide volunteers and they publicize the event.
That's terrific. You mentioned we'd touch on the history of the show. I definitely want to hear
about the history of the show. I think it's very interesting how concours started to spring up and
how they were organized and what it was all around, right? There's a few that are well known,
obviously, sort of Pebbles history and how they did it associated with the racing and other, you
know, San Diego, different ones have some cool history behind them. And then European Concours
that we were familiar with, you're kind of swimming in that pond amongst all of these.
But then we also wanted to tease the audience and hear about some BET stories that you have. So I
want to do both of those. But yeah, let's cover the history of the show first, because I'm anxious
to hear it from the horse's mouth. So in 1956, somebody decides what's the move and who was
involved. So it was Hillsborough Schools Parents Association. And they decided to put on a quote,
unquote, car show. And my crisis downstairs is 1956. I mean, someone of those have been pulled
on as a brand new car, or were they showing, you know, that stuff from the teens in the first
show? Do you have pictures from the first show? Yeah, we do. And it's going to be in our program
as well. Oh, cool. That's cool. It's extraordinary. I mean, we had everything from,
you know, a early 1900s DD on all the way up to a, you know, 1956 DB in Maserati's and rolls,
we had Rolls Royces. They had over 100 cars. It was incredible. And in fact, the car that
won first place was a Rolls Royce. But it was always kind of a, well, it was held at the school
field at the North School in Hillsborough. And they just basically parked on the pitch there.
And they actually had SCCA judges, and they had a whole bunch of other interesting honorary judges.
In fact, Bing Crosby, who lived in Hillsborough, he was known to go to the Hillsborough School.
Did he live in Hillsborough? Oh, yeah. Okay, I didn't know that. I know he had the house
down on the peninsula, but and then obviously all over the place. He was a Hillsborough guy.
He was. Okay. And was he there? Word was he came two or three times.
Is that right? Yeah. In fact, I have a, I have a picture of him
sitting in one of the cars. Is that right? Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing. And, you know,
there's Hillsborough, I mean, we know, this is a nationwide worldwide audience that is listening
to this. And some will know Hillsborough like you and I do. And some will probably not. But it's a
lovely community in the Bay Area where a lot of sort of who's, who have lived over the years,
or maybe still do lovely views out over the Bay. And it's a hilly sort of private secluded thing.
But it's how far from San Francisco, 20, 25 minutes from San Francisco. So it has always had
some super interesting people of industry and local influential folks that have lived there.
So it doesn't surprise anybody when you say, Hey, Hillsborough has a very nice concor, but also
there's cars hidden in those garages over the years that are like unbelievable. So when I was
a kid, you'd go like driving around in those neighborhoods trying to peer, you know, what
people had in their side yard or what people had in their driveway, it was always very cool.
So that kind of springs up this, oh, the parents of this school just decided to
pull their Bentley's out. You know what I mean? Like that sort of thing was a reality.
No question about it. And I haven't been able to find the list of entrants. I got several of the
cars, but I was not able to get the official entry list. But you have to remember back then,
it was like their first time. But what I have found over time is I've picked up this really
interesting archive from the past shows and the local parents association, they were really good
about actually documenting cars and entries and keeping programs and keeping like literally entry
forms and things like that and entrant lists. So I've got quite a hodgepodge of it. And again,
I took a whole bunch of pictures of them and they're going to be kind of a montage in our program
this year. But, you know, it happened on October 7th in 1956. One of the things I noticed is I was
doing some research pulling up some of these old newspaper articles. So there was some,
there was press before the event and then there was post event press. And they were talking
about that Abigail Van Buren was going to be there giving people advice. So, you know,
those of younger people here probably all knew that is, but that's the old Dear Abby,
who used to have a syndicated national column for giving advice.
Was she Bay Area? Yeah.
Is that right? Okay, I never knew the Dear Abby was Bay Area.
Who would have thought? Okay.
And yeah, there, and we get local dignitaries, you know, the Council General from England
came to the event.
Yep, he liked the bed lease.
Yeah, no question. And I think he was happy the Rolls Royce took first place.
But, you know, it's just kind of picked up momentum from there. And as they said in the
post press from the first event, the article said the organizers declared it the first annual.
So I think they said it was a humdinger of a show or something like they use one of those
typical, you know, oldie school exclamations. But, and then just over time, it has just kind
of done the same thing. And what's interesting is, is as, as it evolved, I mean, it became
an even bigger event. So it was not just cars, then they started adding a fashion show.
They added a tennis tournament.
Or they added a gala.
Okay.
Yeah. And there's a cookbook. There's a Hillsborough Concourt cookbook. I mean,
you can't make this stuff up. I mean, when people found out that, you know, that I was
involved in it, out of the woodwork, some of this stuff would come to me. I've got a Hillsborough
Concourt ruler. I've got, of course, you know, various sets of ties.
Yep.
In one of the boxes I found, there was a book that had three different cardboard
pages that had probably two dozen dash placards from the various Hillsborough Concourt.
Yeah. Those are cool.
That was, that was really neat to see. You will see pictures of those too in the program.
And dash placards used to be a pretty hot little item to give away,
and people would actually stick them, you know, on their cars.
Absolutely. We sell a lot of cars that have, you know, you look through the gallery and you see
all these different placards. I wonder what we have for Hillsborough. I bet there's been some,
that have maybe had some of the old Hillsborough dash plaques.
But it was neat because, you know, there was, interestingly enough too, there was a lot more
written in the newspapers about automotive events than I would have expected. I mean,
there was a lot.
Like in the Chronicle or in like an Insula paper.
Yeah, the Standard and Chronicle, Hillsborough Boutique and Villager, you know, it was quite
popular, you know, and that's when, like the Garten, for example, were original sponsor of the races
in the Presidio because the Presidio used to have a really well-known race.
Of San Francisco. Presidio of San Francisco had a drive, and Golden Gate Park actually did.
Yeah, I didn't know too much about the Presidio one, but I knew that Golden Gate Park did.
Could you imagine trying to get that done now?
Well, they were, you were around. No, but you were around when they were trying to do a resurgence
of the Golden Gate Park one, where you were around for that. They wanted to do that again.
Hey, Bales, it's Golden Gate Park and do it. And obviously that went nowhere. It wasn't going to
happen. But also, I mean, something that I've always thought was interesting is, yeah, the
different places that they raced around, I always wonder if it had a connection to Hillsborough.
I mean, SCCA was running at Candlestick Park, right? I mean, and that's only 10 minutes from
Hillsborough. I mean, it's like right there, right? There's early races.
Jim Connors and, yeah, for sure. Allies, road, all kinds of different races, all kinds of different
cars, all kinds of different events. It's a shame because they're really just, you know,
other than on tracks right now and the occasional something like a Cal Mille, you know, in these
different kind of high-end rallies, which are really lovely, but they're very small and there's
no audiences. It's very exclusive. There's no audiences and stuff. It's
kind of a shame because people used to just come out and literally watch these cars rip
around the Presidio. Or the, you know, as you know, Del Monte Forest down in Monterey.
That's what the original, I mean, Pebble Beach was just a car show. Where the show came from.
After, yeah, that was accompanied the races. And, you know, it's kind of a shame that stuff's gone
away. But we do... The Concours was like the cookbook. You just add it on to the existing
event, right? And then it became the main event over some years, for sure.
So, the Concours, it just kind of kept evolving and they started adding more like a fair. So,
I mean, they had the police would come and have the Attack Dog show. And then you would have...
Is there such a thing as an Attack Dog show? Oh, yeah, it was the best.
Era is this. It was, you know, the canine. I know, I know.
There used to be a car, a thief and the dog was ripping across.
Is that like in the 90s? Or is that like in the 50s?
80s, 80s, 90s. No, the Hillsborough Police Department has just been an amazing supporter
of us. I've never been to an Attack Dog show. I mean, I may need to still do that.
Oh, it was... It was...
Are you saying you were in attendance? You
Oh, man, where was I? I did it again. My invite got lost or I was a little kid, I guess.
Well, my parents, I lived in Hillsborough. My parents moved to Hillsborough when I was a
sophomore in college. And so, that's where I got introduced to the Conqueror. I was always a car
guy and, you know, grew up just loving anything that turned fuel into noise, cars, boats, planes,
whatever. I was all over at motorcycles, much to my parents' chagrin. But the Hillsborough Conqueror
was fun. And they had, like I said, they had the police thing. They had a dunk tank. The
parents were out there barbecuing, making hot dogs and hamburgers and cotton candy. And so,
it was very much of a community event. In fact, I read on one of the newspaper articles about one
of the years, I think it was like 1969 or something. They said they had 20,000 people.
No way.
Yeah. I mean, wow. To be honest, I would kill 20,000 people.
I know. I know. Well, most conqueror would. I think that is a lot of people.
20,000 people.
You know, and it's amazing because again, like for all the entrance, the parents' group were
making sandwiches, you know, so you enter your car, you get a spot on the field, you get a little
whatever, you know, gift bag and you get a sandwich.
Yeah.
And but I would hear these stories about how guys would come and bring all these big picnic
baskets and stuff, particularly like the old Rolls Royce Bentley guys, they'd open up their
boot and they would have these amazing baskets, champagne and the whole thing, which leads me
to the, you know, the current concord. Because back then, on school property, there are two
main things you couldn't do. Serve or drink alcohol.
Okay.
Because it's state school property.
Okay.
And there wasn't any corporate sponsor tent type of.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah. And so that, as you can imagine, really limited the income capacity.
The economics were hard.
Pure, just pure donations. But it was still, you know, an incredibly well respected event.
And in fact, so folks like Lauren Tryon and Jay Heumann, you know, who created the modern
Pebble Beach, you know, Sandra Button has done an amazing job, but she worked for them originally.
And they're the ones that basically turned the event from basically a car show that wasn't doing
all that well into the world renowned event that it was. And Jay Heumann and Lauren were
both honorary judges at one time at the event and back then. So they, the concord was moved
up to usually the first Sunday in May. And they wanted to get it out of the fall. And so
part of that made it really good timing for teeing up cars for Pebble. And so the car that
took best to show at Hillsboro always got invited to Pebble. Oh, interesting.
It's just kind of a cool little thing.
Yeah. Officially, or that just happened. That was like, that just always seemed to happen,
or that actually wasn't arranged. No, like Jay Heumann, who was the chairman,
he walked up and he go, you know, you're invited to Pebble.
You're coming. Okay. Interesting.
And, and I don't know how long that went on. But so that continued to raise the
prestige of the event. But again, because of the Bay Area and the car collectors that you,
like you mentioned as well, I mean, there are incredible collectors that lived in Hillsboro
in the greater Bay Area. In fact, there's a fellows, these George Dyer who had like a 250
GTO and you like, used to take his kids to school in it. Yeah. You know, and he had a mirror and
he had a bunch of cars. He was just a super cool guy and try to rip it around Hillsboro.
Yep. Spencer used to live down there, right? Bev Spencer used to live down there. The Ferrari
dealer in San Francisco used to live down the Hillsville pictures of Phil Hill at his
Rose Garden in Hillsboro, right? Bob Cole, you know, legend and racer and collector and
pet candy store founder and all that kind of stuff. But so again, the event really pretty
much went on, unabated, thank goodness, for all these years. And then in 2009, there was a big
change in, I guess, in the local demographic about supporting these types of things. And
the show started to really struggle. And I think part of it was as they made it a little bit more
focused on the carnival type of stuff, and less on the cars. And I think the show got a little
less serious from a collector perspective. And so, you know, when the animals in the circus,
so to speak, become, you know, kind of more boring, people don't want to go to the circus.
And so in 2009, it was decided that the Hillsboro Schools Foundation was no longer going to do
the show. And I heard about that and had a big conversation with them and then with the town
of Hillsboro. And I with a few other folks put together and formed the Hillsboro Concord Foundation
and basically took over the show from Hillsboro Schools. And, you know, I mentioned before,
you couldn't have alcohol and you couldn't have corporate sponsorship. We figured out, you know,
if you're going to really have an event that's going to survive, you got to have those two things.
And so I went on the hunt for a new venue and talked to a number of different places and
ultimately ended up at the, just up the hill, beautiful Christopher Springs Golf Course,
which is on Christopher Springs Reservoir. And I worked out an agreement with the folks that
managed that, wonderful folks that company called Corsco that manages a whole bunch of
properties around the state. And interestingly enough, that property is actually owned city of
right, which makes for interesting permitting. Yeah. And it's technically known as the greenest
golf course in the country, too. Is it color or in terms of eco? In terms of eco. Okay. Yeah.
You know, because it's it's anything that they use, because typical golf courses, you know,
they flood everything with fertilizer, kind of weed killer and all that stuff. They can't do
any of that stuff. And so they have very special management skills that keep that course in the
shape that it's in. But also, if you've ever played there, you know, there's there's deer
walking all around. That's right. Raptors flying and it's a beautiful, beautiful venue.
And so we worked out the deal there. And so in 2010, we moved the Hillsborough Concours from
North School and Hillsborough up the hill to Christopher Springs Golf Course 18th hole.
And, you know, part of that was in order to make that successful, clearly, we had to be
able to keep the brand. And we worked out basically, you know, for a dollar a year,
we have the license for that. Okay, we're all Hillsborough parents. So we've all had kids go
through Hillsborough schools. And so we obviously want to make sure we continue to support that.
But otherwise, we were allowed to we created a whole new logo, branding and website,
all new content. And we morphed the logo every year based upon the theme, but the core logo
still in the middle of it. And we were really celebrating being formed in 1956. But we did a
ton of research and work with a fellow by the name of Charles Rashul, who has a company called
Brand Advisors here in San Francisco, was a dear friend of mine from just post college years. And
he was kind enough to put his team on and help design a brand new logo. And then we just started
going out and telling everybody, reaching out to the car collectors and reaching out to everybody
that said, Hey, the concourse not dead. And we're going to create a whole new show that's going to
be very car and owner centric. So we're trying to bring back that ethos of quality cars, quality
judging, quality environment, and an equally important quality food, quality experience.
And I coined the phrase, Hillsboro Concourse, come for the cars, but stay for the day.
And the goal in my first PowerPoint that I put together was to hopefully be one of the most
well attended social and automotive events in the Bay Area. And we've done a pretty good job
on executing on that, you know, and it can do without the amazing team that we have.
So, you know, it's, it's, it's been amazing. We average between 180 and 200 cars and about a
dozen motorcycles on the field each year, usually have between 20 and 25 classes. And we've got about
a dozen, what we call perpetual awards, these honorary awards that are given out by the honorary
judges, they're kind of the coveted awards. You know, the People's Choice Award, the, the
Stroather McMain Award, the Franklin Templeton Best Open Pre-War, you know, those kinds of
things. And people love those. And you're still, you know, you've got this claim to fame of
continuously running. So obviously you swept in and, and like wanted to reinvigorate this, but
that was right. If it was having issues in, what'd you say, 2009 or 2010? You were there for that
year and got it relocated and up and running at the new location. First year at the new location
was what? 2010. 2010. Yeah. Okay. So 16 year run. And then obviously you've been continuous through,
there were some COVID years there that were a little weird. And there's a couple other things,
too, but you've kept it rocking and rolling. So I want to hear this sort of last 16 years
chapter after the reinvention, like tell us about, tell us about that.
Well, you mentioned COVID. So all Concor got reset in 2020. So our continuous run ended in 2020. We
did not have a show, nor did anybody else for the most part. Oh, I see. So we locked in the longest
continually running show. Oh, I see. Because no, claim to fame of that forever, because everybody
stopped. Yeah, because everybody stopped. Oh, interesting. So now we're all starting again,
technically. So 2020 was the end of that run. Okay. Because COVID wasn't a real deal,
right? It changed events. It changed everything. There was almost no way to do it, particularly
in California. Things were, we tried to hold on. So it flipped back on after that in what,
2023? 2021. 2021. Oh, okay. So it only missed one year. Yeah, one year. Okay, missed one year. Yeah,
that was right in the late spring 2020, which was a crazy time for everybody.
Yeah, we almost made it. We But they couldn't guarantee that the lockdown was going
to, in other words, the county health department said, essentially, we can't let you do this,
even though it's open air. And we're like, we'll give out, we'll give out masks to everybody,
and other stuff. In hindsight, it's also, oh, I know, all these hand wash stations,
the whole bit, and they're like, we're just not going to let you do it. And we need to have the
health permits, because we serve food and all this other kind of stuff. And so we couldn't run it.
But like the earlier shows, like La Jolla got hit hard, because they're always in April. So
they had no hope. And then Pavel, who is after us, they still cancel too. Yeah, amazing. Well,
part of their problem was they couldn't, not to speak for them, but a lot of their folks come in
from Europe and around the world. Nobody was flying in. Yeah, that's right. And I'm sure they
also had major permit problems too, and sponsor problems, only above. So but in general, outside
of that issue, in general, since 2010, like what has happened? You relocated it, you kind of had
to breathe some life into it. You said it was it was kind of waning in the 2006, 789
and then you relocated, but it's been kind of building from ground up for the foundation and
other things. Yeah, we just keep going strength to strength. The one thing I did was I moved it
out of May because we were just getting a lot of rain, and nobody likes to go out to shows and
show cars in the rain. Yep. So we bounced around from a couple of dates. We tried, we tried September,
we tried August. I thought it'd be a really great idea to try to do it the weekend after
Pavel, because I had this brilliant idea that, oh, the cars are already here. I don't know about
that. Well, I found that out the hard way. Yeah, the cars are already here. I'm sure we just get
them come off the road. I was like, yeah, when I quickly realized at, you know, 401 on Sunday,
they're all loading trailers and they get the hell out of town, and they're all exhausted.
And so that, that didn't last long. And so then we moved it into July for a little bit,
and we realized it was a little hotter than we wanted it to be. And so now we settled on
the third weekend in June. Normally, this year, we were the fourth weekend in June,
four Sunday because Father's Day is the third weekend. And suffice it to say,
there's zero chance that Crystal Springs Golf Course was going to let us have the golf course
on Father's Day. Oh, is that right? Interesting. That's a golf course thing. Yeah, it's,
I'd love to go to a car show on Father's Day, but yeah, the venue is a little tricky. Well,
funnily enough, Palo Alto Concord, Concord that was around for many years. They were on Father's
Day. They're gone. I last went to that in about 01. But it was cool, but it was right there in
town, but it's been long gone. They died in 2012, 2013. Okay. And actually, the guy who was the
chairman of that event, Hal Shudi joined my operating committee for that. And then he's
one of our honorary judges now. Oh, terrific. Yeah. But yeah, it's been going just strength
to strength. We've been adding sponsors, been getting, you know, importantly, we've been getting
more and more recognition for the quality of the cars and taking care of the entrance.
You know, it's going to sound funny, but I mean, I had a couple of hard rules like no blue holes
of death. So you'll see none of the porta-potties, you know, none of those. So we have very nice,
we have very nice trailers. I've never heard that one. That's just kind of my thing.
Okay. Yeah, I want, you know, nothing against anybody who has these, but no, you know,
no food trucks. Okay. Going to be catered food. Yeah. And, you know, minimizing barbecue stuff
because the smoke and things like that, we don't want... We had a guy, a caterer,
and I think our second year, he had a big open barbecue pit and it was fine for making great
food, but the smoke and the stuff that was the residuals that were in the air were getting on
the cars. Getting on the cars. Oh, that's the kiss of death right there. Sorry, sir. Yeah,
you're going to have to put that out. Not happy. Getting some really great support from the local
dealerships. You know, Burlingame has this phenomenal auto row. And a history of interesting
characters again, right? People running those dealers and running cars, slinging cars around
everything, right? Which ones? Which ones come to mind for you, Putnam? Putnam and Rector.
He used to be on the radio advertising that stuff, right? Yeah, with Kruco. And it's funny,
I bought a Putnam Mazda, I bought an RX7 from that. Is that right? But no, Putnam family dealerships,
is what they're called now. They have been a phenomenal title sponsor for us as well.
I love that they still have a privateer name on them, right? It's not like the auto nation
Mazda of Hillsborough or Burlingame, right? They still got some family names on the
dealers. I love that. Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of tragic. Like Rector was always, you know,
Rector Cadillac, Audi, all these family names, right? But they were forced to... Carlson's,
I mean, all these families that ran those. Neutralize it now. It's just Porsche Burlingame.
Yeah, that's right. But yeah, we've been blessed with having great dealership support,
Exotics as well. And what's really kind of fun, too, is they come back to me after the event,
and they talk about what a good time they had. And almost to the dealer, they will sell a couple
cars on the field. You know, we had Silicon Valley, Exotics, Silicon Valley luxury or whatever.
And they had a phenomenal like Lambo on the field. And the guy walked up and was like,
I want it. And I'm like, you can't have it here yet or something. Yeah, tomorrow. We'll sell it to
you on Monday. Yeah, yeah. And so at least that's the story I was told in. But yeah, so it's
continued to grow. And we're starting to see more and more collections, collectors bringing their
cars. You know, it was very much California. And then we started picking up a little Oregon,
a little bit of Washington, a little bit of Arizona, a little bit of Southern California.
Although, interestingly, you know, we talked about the insurance and the costs and all kind of stuff.
We used to get a lot more Southern California entrance, but they just don't come up
north of Santa Barbara too much. Is that right? Yeah, it's really hard. You know,
you've got La Jolla and you've got San Marino down there. San Marino's this weekend.
I've never been to San Marino. I know where the La Jolla one is and I've followed that one a
little bit, but never the San Marino. Yeah, Aaron Rice puts on a great show. He's a perennial
entrant for Hillsboro. He's one of the few SoCal people that come up. My gosh, he's won
best of show three or four times. And he brings just incredible, incredible cars.
But he puts on that great show down there. We'd love to see more Southern California support.
And again, the thing is, you know, it's a trailer. It's a, it's a, it's gas. It's a hotel. It's food.
And back, you know, 20, 30 years ago, that was less material than it is now. And you just don't
get that support like we like to. But you're still ramping up support for it. And I'm excited to
see the entrance on Sunday. I'm also excited to see the entrance on Saturday. And then we want
to encourage people to attend. We have a cool BET ticket offer. And that's going to be what? For
the first 200 people that claim it, we'll have a discount on tickets for people who drop a line
through BET. Tell the audience how that's going to work. Sure. Yeah. You go to our website,
HillsboroConcord.org. And when you go to buy tickets, it'll ask if you have a discount code.
And the BET code is BET26, BET26. And that'll get you a $10 discount on your tickets. And it's
good for the first 200 ticket purchasers. Okay. Fantastic. And, and sorry, what's ticket entry
fee 10 bucks off of what? It's 85 on the day. But if you buy it ahead of time, it's 75 right now.
Okay. 75 less 10 if you do it. So get out there and use the BET code. We'll put that in the
right up on this podcast and also in the show notes so that you can click on that and make sure
you go straight over to the Hillsboro website. We'd love to see people. We're going to have
a BET tent there on Sunday and our staff as well. So come on out and say hello. Sounds like there'll
be some people interviewed and different sorts of things in terms of what's going on at the show
that day. And you'll get to see at least one Keller collection, Mercedes, which is incredible.
That's like top of the heap type stuff. So I'm excited for all that. And then, so yeah,
that's a ton on the show. And we're super psyched that BET is a sponsor and involved in it.
But as you guys in the audience can hear, Rob is a perfect MC for the show. He's local. He's kind
of the guy that saved it on some level, if I can say that. And he's also, yeah, great at chatting
about it. But people would maybe like to know some of your connection to BET too. I told you,
I warned you in advance. You've got a few early BET stories and then our connections as well and
San Francisco Car Culture and other things we could talk about. So tell the audience a little
bit about how this connection to BET came about and your and my connection and all of that.
Sure. Well, the BET connection goes way back, interestingly enough. So I lived in London
for six years from 2001 to 2007. And I've always been a car guy, as I mentioned,
but when you live over in London, I mean, you get just infused, right? The car culture there
is just exceptional. I mean, something going on every weekend. I actually joined the Royal
Automobile Club. Oh, is that right? Wow, cool.
I joined Goodwood Road Racing Club and just immersed myself in it and really became
in love with both British cars and Italian cars. She could hard choice, right?
But anyway, so we moved back and when I moved back from London, I wanted to get into racing.
And at that time, all you could do is go on million different websites and search
and try to look for different cars. You talked to different people and I was looking for either
a 1956, 1957 Alpha Spider, which is really kind of my sweet spot, Spider Veloce, right?
So I was looking at all kinds of different spots and my buddy said, you know, you ought to check
out this email thing called Bring a Trailer. And I'm like, what's that? And he said, oh,
you just subscribe and you get an email every day. And I'm like, okay, fine.
And we got a few Alphas. And yeah, they have all kinds of stuff, right? So I subscribed to the list
and I used to refer to it as like Christmas Day every morning. You know, you open up the email
and oh, look at this. But what it was is as you know, I mean, there are links to all the cool cars
that were on different sites. It was like an aggregation email. It was a really great brilliant
idea. And one day, somebody put in a link that you guys publish to an eBay ad for 1957 AC Aseca
Racecar. I had no idea what the hell AC Aseca was. But I know that I liked what it looked like.
And so I clicked on that went to the eBay site. And it was the most beautiful thing. And it was
exactly kind of what I wanted to interest the enough Italian design car, British car,
but Italian design to zero. And I watched it and it did not sell. So I sent a note to the guy
who was selling it. And within 48 hours, I bought it. And I then brought that car out here and I
raced it. It was in Connecticut? Or where was it? It was East Coast, wasn't it? No, it was in
Midwest. Midwest. I think it was like Indiana. Because we're talking the red one with the white
stripe and the red. Yeah, I remember that car well. It was not just any Aseca, right? I mean,
it was set up as a race car. It was cool. Well, the original car, so it had a Bristol motor.
So the AC Aseca Bristol. And so those who don't know what an Aseca is, Aseca is the AC Ace. Everybody
so AC Ace Bristol would be an AC Ace for the Bristol engine. But the AC Ace is the car that the AC
Cobra was that became. Carol Shelby got the chassis from AC and turned those into the Cobra.
Well, picture a Coupe Cobra. Because you look at it from the front, it looks just like a Cobra.
But it's a Coupe, two door Coupe. And this thing was fabulous. It had a at a four speed with an
overdrive in it. Locked a Norma build overdrive had a straight six Bristol engine, which is the
motor that came out of the early BMWs. And I raced the heck out of it and had a great time. But the
car had a fellow who owned it, two owners beforehand. He's the one who converted it to the race car
because he wanted to run in the La Carrera, Pan Americana. And it ran in the La Carrera.
Wow. And then he all survived. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the mods he did on it were incredible.
And then he also ran it in a lot of historic racing. He ran in the British
Historic. I think he did the Tourado before it was Tourado, something like that.
Oh, wow. In Europe.
Yeah. In Europe. Because he was rich. He was living over there. And I got a hold of him
to find out more history on the car. And he, as he said, he suffered a financial disaster and
needed to sell the car. Other than racing? Yeah. A different financial disaster?
Yeah. And I'm going on a little, probably too long. Sorry. But the...
No, I love it. People love it. This is a BAT alumni car. I mean, I featured that car because
I thought it was the best thing on eBay that day, you know? And I loved it.
And I was hooked forever, by the way. So, he put it up for auction and Bruce McCall bought it.
Really? Yeah.
This is before you.
Before me. Okay.
Yeah. Bruce McCall bought it. And he actually, I believe either the Colorado Grand or the
Copper State, one or the other in it. Because it was a great
road rally car. Event car, yeah.
Perfect. I mean, it previously had a Fulva in it, you know, the whole old school mileage thing.
And it was just, you know, a super reliable car. And I don't know...
And you kept it for a while? You raced it and then you unloaded it? Or what'd you do with that thing?
So, after buying it, yeah, I raced it in HMSA and CSRG, Hunan and Sears and Thunder Hill.
And I got to a point where I was like, I'd gone as fast and as far as I could go with a car.
Okay.
And when you start having conversations about doing unnatural things to the car to make it do
unnatural things, you know, it's like, now you're just pouring money into it. And what am I going
to get? You know, it's a hundred and 2000 and thirty horsepower car. We're always
going to be in the middle of the pack. You know, we were the 1957 and 1963 GT car.
Yeah.
You know, and the problem is within that, that has Corvettes and there's Ferraris
in there too. You get your doors blown off no matter what.
And so, I was always hanging out in the middle racing with MGs and stuff, which was fun. But
I'm like, you know, I want to go faster. So, what really catalyzed it was I was racing down a Monterey
and the Monterey auctions were going on and a couple of ACS Seacas went up for sale.
And they went up and they went for a lot of money.
Oh, okay. You're like, it's time.
Oh, it's time. And yeah, like twice as much as I paid for the car. Now, I realized when it's a race car,
you know, it takes a special buyer. So, I listed it with Fantasy Junction and in a couple of months,
they sold it. Okay.
And I bought a Formula Atlantic.
Oh, interesting. And I never knew that. You've never told me that. I never knew you were an
open wheel out there doing stuff.
I went from training wheel bike to the real deal.
Yeah, for sure.
And because everybody had been telling me about how great these were and basically the best thing
you can do with your clothes on. So, I'm like, okay. So, we tried that. And I bought this great
March 79B, fabulous car, absolutely fabulous car. And I learned a ton. And I raced that for
five years and then decided to stop racing for a bit because I'm a pilot as well. And I
wanted to get back into flying a bit. And you kind of can't do both unless you're
much more well off than I am.
Okay. Yeah. Burning both ends a little bit.
Yeah, exactly. And so, I took some time off and got back into flying because I hadn't flown in a
while. Now let's keep sharp. And so, started doing that. And so, I haven't gotten back into racing.
But you're running the show. I mean, you got plenty going on.
Exactly. Still flying. But, you know, fast forward, you know, BAT. And I remember when
you guys first went to the auction where you had like, I don't know, a dozen cars.
And you started with three, man. We started with three a week.
And true story, I texted Keith Martin, you know, from a sports car market.
Yeah, sure. He's a friend.
We'd become friends. And I said, what do you think about this going to the auction?
And we were both like, this could catch on, you know? But I was a little dubious about it,
honestly. So, I was like competing against eBay or competing against, you know, the auction houses.
I didn't think they were going to take that quietly, you know, go quietly with that. But,
you know, never underestimate the BAT community element. I mean, that's obviously what caught fire.
And, you know, fast forward through that, you know, I've been a devoted BAT fella.
I've sold three cars on BAT. I sold my 1960 Austin Haley BT-7.
There you go.
I sold my 2007 Audi RS4.
Nice.
And my...
I didn't know you had one of those, man. You got all these secrets that are coming out.
I love this. I love those Audis.
I got the Audi downstairs. I love those.
Big Audi fan.
Okay, cool.
So, well, when I was living in London, I got turned into the RS4 and the RS4 Avant.
They had stuff we didn't have.
The wagon. The wagon is the ultimate grocery getter.
Yeah, that's a good car.
Incredible car. But I love that car so much. So I found one online at a dealer. It was a dealer car,
Rugello Blue Black Interior.
Man, cool.
And I had it delivered.
But you sold it on BAT.
Yeah, I had it delivered to my friend before I even moved back from London.
He took delivery a week before I moved back.
So drove that, my daily driver. Great, great.
Ultimate sleeper car.
Yes.
People are like, oh, that's kind of S4. No, it's an RS4. Don't confuse the two.
So I sold that and I got a 2009 R8.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, Rugello Blue with Silver Blades.
I wish you would say you're buying all these on BAT.
I don't think you are. You're selling. You're smart.
You buy them elsewhere and then you sell them for big dough on BAT.
Yeah.
Is that the model?
It is kind of the model.
But no, and that remains to this day my favorite car.
But it's gone.
It's still around.
It's gone.
I took the job heading up the Academy of Art University's Auto Museum.
That's right. Oh, man, we could talk about that too forever. That's amazing.
It was my daily driver and the location for the museum was not ideal,
particularly for an R8.
The Van Ness location, or a different one.
Yeah, right on Van Ness Avenue in an old car dealer or an old bank.
Or what was it?
That one was like a furniture store or some other stuff.
Okay. I didn't know if it was the old BFC.
The other location further down Van Ness, that was an old Mercedes deal.
Yeah, that's right.
The main location, like where my office, where the School of Industrial Design,
where Tomatano was, all that, that was...
RIP, Tomatano.
Yeah, exactly.
So I was, candidly, I'm commuting in an R8.
It was less than ideal.
Okay.
And I only had two spots in the garage.
Yeah, okay.
So that had to go.
That went on BET.
I love it. We'll pull up some of those blades.
That Audi Q3 replaced it.
But now I've got my Jag F-Type.
Okay, cool.
Dark blue.
Okay.
Tan and tear convertible.
Okay.
It's a fun car.
Nice.
It's a very fun car.
But I love BET.
And I've turned so many people onto it for selling their cars or trying to buy cars.
And when you start wanting to do research too for wanting to buy a car or sell a car,
your database is just invaluable.
For a wide variety of crazy models.
And then you brought a crazy car to BET HQ to give a little shop talk to our staff.
That's a long time ago now.
You remember when that was?
Yeah, that was.
Was it at 18?
Yeah.
Right.
I think it was because we moved into this place in 17, I think.
And then it was pre-COVID.
And you came cruising in.
We had a couple interesting cars.
I forget somebody else brought a more modern Ferrari.
And then you tell them what you brought.
Yeah, I brought a 275 GTB.
That was sweet.
Red and tan.
Like once every two weeks or so,
we would have an interesting car in the office and we'd do like a familiarization walk on.
This is when pretty much our whole staff was here.
Actually, they were, right?
Yeah.
Pre-COVID.
We didn't really go very remote yet.
So our whole staff was here and we'd like buy sandwiches.
And somebody had pulled in a Porsche 9146 and then an old Mustang.
And then we had a couple Alpha GTBs here we talked about them.
And E9 BMWs, we had all these people around.
And we'd just say, hey, bring your car.
We'll do like a coffee talk around it.
And that was great for our staff.
And then you're like, well, why don't I bring a 275?
And I was like, well, heck yeah.
Why don't you bring that?
That was fun.
That was a ton of fun.
Although driving in the kind of sketchy areas of the 275 was easy.
Yeah.
We truly tried not to keep it too sketchy around here,
but peering out the window.
Because this is bad.
This is bad.
Can't get a little tricky.
On the way here.
On the way here to Gellin.
You know, it's funny when we think about like, so, you know,
the Academy of Art, you know, every year was a big supporter of the auto show.
You know.
SF auto show.
Yeah, at Moscone.
Yes.
And if you went, I'm sure you did.
I went every Thanksgiving, right?
It was Thanksgiving weekend.
My dad used to take me every year.
Yeah, for a dozen years.
Me too.
Always looked forward to that when I was a kid.
And, but AAU had a big area.
And we usually brought about 15, 17 cars.
Yeah.
And they were always great cars, you know.
And it was an amazing coordinated effort.
We had to, first of all, make sure all the cars were running.
And then at night, when there's no traffic and nobody around,
we would transport the cars from the museum.
On the road.
You'd drive them over, right?
Yeah.
Because it's just, you know, not 10 minutes.
Yeah.
But, you know, weaving around San Francisco
from Venice over to Moscone, suffice to say,
there's some areas you don't want to break down.
It's a tricky neighborhood.
Very tricky.
Yeah.
You know, I'm driving a Tabalago, you know.
Open car.
Cross 6th Street.
Just kind of idling in across 6th Street.
Oh, and there was, yeah, stop lights didn't exist.
Well, I was, if there's a red and you're supposed to park there for three minutes
and let the locals have a discussion with you, you just hit the gas.
No, no question.
Okay.
High five.
Yeah, keep going.
And then you have to reverse the process on, you know, at Sunday night.
That's amazing.
At the end of the show.
That's a good story.
I love that.
Yeah.
Man, you're involved with the academy for how long?
Two and a half years and then COVID hit.
Yeah, okay.
And they divested a lot of cars.
Are they even still having cars anymore or they don't have anymore?
No, they're all gone.
They're all gone.
Okay.
So, yeah, when I first started there, we had 250 cars.
Oh my gosh.
And we had some amazing cars.
I mean, absolutely incredible cars.
I remember.
You know, tons of Packards, Rolls-Royce, a number of Duesenbergs, Bugattis,
some really super rare cars.
They've all moved on.
Wow, that's crazy.
All moved on.
Actually, funny story.
Before I was working there, I had this awesome 1970 Mini Cooper S.
That was Robin's Egg Blue, White Top, Australian.
Very cool.
So really rare Australian right-hand drive.
Super great cars.
The Aussie ones came with actually some different features that people like.
Actually getting an Aussie shell.
Was a big deal.
Yeah, had the rain gutters.
Yeah, yeah.
The window handles and the door handles were different.
That's right.
The exterior latch.
That's right.
And this car was perfect.
Anyway, one person class, Palo Alto, and at Hillsboro, when I showed it, I had my kids show it.
Wow.
And the folks at the Academy liked it.
Actually, the brother of the president of the University, Lisa Stevens, liked it.
And so I sold it to him.
So fast forward, I'm now working there.
And I see my old car there every day.
And then not this year, but last January or February,
when they were selling off the final cars, that car went up for sale.
Did it.
Because they had sold off all these other cars they finally were selling.
I want to say their favorites.
We'll see, you know, whatever you want.
But it came up for sale.
And I talked to my wife.
I'm like, I want to buy it back.
And she's like, well, let's see.
You know, we watch it and it gets bid and it starts going up and up.
And I'm like, okay, it's now exceeded my threshold.
Okay.
And it sold for great money.
And ultimately, it turns out, from what I understand,
it was sold to Mr. Farley, CEO of Ford.
Oh, is that right?
Oh my goodness, really?
He wanted a mini.
He's a big dude as he squeezed into that little mini.
I hope this is true.
But I was told it was being shipped to Jim Farley.
Okay, cool.
Well, he can follow up with that.
He's a visa BAT user.
He's been on the podcast.
And I sat right here with a couple of nice chats with Jim.
How nice is that to have a CEO who's a proper car guy?
Yeah, no, he's legit.
And he does very cool things with cars.
And I had to race in his same class at Monterey last year,
and it was terrifying because he's the fastest dude out there.
His coper is going to run well.
Yeah, it tends to.
It tends to.
No question.
So that's fun.
Well, thanks for sharing that story.
Yeah, there's some San Francisco connections.
And yeah, we didn't even touch on the Martin Swig connection.
Obviously, just San Francisco car culture has had a lot of different folks in it.
And I always consider you someone that's sort of at the center of that,
right, with the connections through the Art Academy and also now Hillsborough Concord,
and then just different things that have gone on here.
And there were sort of a wave of different eras of car people in the city.
And you've been tied in with that, and I've been tied in with that.
And that's kind of how you and I ended up getting to know each other.
But BAT has been a through line that has tied a lot of those different groups together.
And thankfully now it's tying the Hillsborough Concord in.
And I'm very glad that our audience can hear all about it and hopefully come out and say hello
to me, to others and a lot of things.
See, you'll be on the mic and on the MC duty all day.
Are you going to be just talking nonstop the whole day?
Or when do you end up doing it?
No, you're eating steak sandwiches and kicking your feet up.
I do a fair bit of talking about the one thing.
You know, I will do a survey every few years.
One of the kind of themes was that they came back that, you know, for improvements, right?
You know, not so much talking, do less talking.
Cannelly, it wasn't me at the time.
But we didn't know, you know, we had a kind of a thing going.
And so when I took over as MC, I just kind of put myself in their shoes too.
They don't want to hear me talking all day long.
You know, we'll do a fair bit of talking during the awards when that comes out.
And, you know, we have some important things to talk about when we're, you know,
honoring the charities or celebrating, you know, anniversaries or remembering people,
things like that.
But, you know, get off the stage, get out, see the cars, check it out.
Then, you know, and also, frankly, I love walking out there, talking to people,
getting infused with the vibe on the field and actually seeing the cars physically because,
you know, I look through all the applications, you know, I'm part of the selection process.
So it's nice to see the cars.
And you'll pick a few in your mind as a person who's organizing the event.
You know, that's an interesting story.
I want to go see that.
And, you know, there's the Robin Sue Fisher Phoenix Award, which we award to a car that's
got a phenomenal story that basically the car was bend, you know, and resurrected
into an amazing show car or something like that.
And then since I'm president of the candy store, there's a president, the candy store
president award.
And so I get to pick two trophies anyway, even though I'm emcee.
So I got to go out there and talk to people anyway.
But it also gives me some kind of water when I come back to the mic to talk about while I'm out there.
But, you know, it's such a beautiful venue.
Yes, you've never been there.
I know, I've never been.
This is going to, well, I've been to the venue, but only to swing a club.
I haven't been there to, you know, look at the cars.
So I'm excited for it.
Shame on you.
But it's just gorgeous out there.
And like I said, the food's great.
The cars are wonderful.
You know, we've got, it's on a golf course.
So there's there's sand traps, right?
And my wife was like, how do we make the center?
We talked about trying to be appealing to everybody.
And what about the little kids?
Because little kids will drive you nuts when you're trying to look at cars.
Right? My wife's like, oh, you know what?
We'll take the, we'll put them in the sand.
Yeah, there you go.
So she went and bought a whole bunch of sand toys and then we put sand toys in the sand trap.
I can't tell you how many times people come up and say, thank you so much for doing that.
And we've got great pictures of the kids just playing and having a good time.
You know, and so, you know, when we get the local community, somebody always from the local
community sings the national anthem when we kick it off.
And and you're right up against it.
You're like the week before the 4th of July.
4th of July, right? We got to get some red, white and blue going.
Actually, that's a really good point.
And and so it's just, it's just a delightful day out.
And again, you don't even have to be a car person to come in and appreciate the aesthetic
because it just, they are really, truly rolling works of art.
And, and, you know, if you're, if you find yourself looking for something to do on,
you know, June 28th, it's not a bad place to go.
It's not a bad deal.
Well, look for it.
We'll look straight for it, not just, not just as last resort as first resort.
I'm excited for it.
Super excited that we can partner this year.
Yes, yes, really.
Thanks for being a great partner in that and excited that we can have you on the podcast.
And yeah, tell the crowd about it.
Tell them about the ticket offer, 10 bucks off for being part of BAT when you do that.
And again, come on out, meet us and take a look at this event,
which sounds like it's going to be a great one.
Rob, super cool to have you on the podcast and your history with BAT.
And also the other thing that'll be in the story and such is looking at the links of those old
cars. We'll put the link, everything on BAT is permanent, as you know.
So the SICA listing that I wrote up in the middle of the night.
Did you really?
Of course I wrote that one, you know.
We'll link that and then we'll link to, to those other fun cars that you've sold on BAT.
You're an authentic user and advocate for BAT, which we really appreciate because part of BATs,
we have people always try to point like, why is BAT growing or why did it do what it did?
You know, there were sort of important folks over the years that were big believers in what
we were doing and used it and adopted it early. And I count you on that list. So thank you for
doing that.
I would definitely be an evangelist. I have been for sure.
You have been for years and years. So anyhow, great to have you here, a really fun interview
and hear so many layers of this. It sounds like we could, you know, unpeel the onion more and
more and more as we go. And we'll maybe have to have you back another time. But thanks for joining.
Thanks everybody out there for listening to this episode of the BAT podcast. Rob Fisher,
high fives to you and we hope for a great show in a couple of weeks here.
And everybody out there listening, we'll catch you on the next BAT podcast.
About this episode
Rob Fisher of the Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance joins Bring a Trailer Podcast to walk through a 70th-anniversary celebration built around judging, community, and logistics. The hosts lay out the weekend’s rhythm—June 28, plus a June 26 kickoff and Saturday’s Tour d’Elegance with 80–100 cars. They preview featured themes like Mercedes-Benz’s 100th anniversary and a 1939 540K with royal provenance, while also discussing how concours culture has evolved, including volunteer judging and the Phoenix Award.
This week Randy hosts Rob Fisher (@Acecaracer on BaT), chairman of the foundation behind the Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance, who claims the mantle of longest continually running concours in the world. BaT will be sponsoring and joining the 70th annual running of this three-day event, culminating June 28 at Crystal Springs Golf Course in Burlingame. Discount alert! The first 200 people to buy their tickets for Sunday, June 28 on the Hillsborough Concours website using the code BAT26 get $10 off the ticket price!
Randy and Rob talk about having a 250 GTO and a Wienermobile in the same show; the Concours' all-volunteer organization; featuring the hundredth anniversary of Mercedes-Benz with a 1939 540K Special Roadster from the Keller Collection; the increased difficulties in getting pre-war halo cars to a venue; the charities that benefit from the proceeds of the event; the origins of the show as a community gathering with guests like Bing Crosby and Abigail van Buren; the turmoil of big changes in 2009, and the evolution since. They leave time to talk about Rob's discovery of BaT, some of the cars he's bought and sold here, and transporting important cars to Moscone Center through San Francisco's less-than-stellar neighborhoods in the wee hours.
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