Villa d'Este - by Vincent Zesser

There are a couple of events around the world that every car aficionado should not miss and the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este is definitely one of them. It may not have yet reached the fame of Goodwood Festival of Speed among the general audience, but for true automotive design fans, Villa d’Este is a must.

Every year, the splendid renaissance villa plays host to a gathering of pristinely conditioned classic cars. It also serves as the stage of a design competition where an internationally renowned award is awarded for the best concept cars and prototypes.

More recently, Concours d’Elegance such as the one taking place at Villa d’Este have also become increasingly used for marketing activities by automotive manufacturers. Along with the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California, the Villa d’Este event has also become the place of choice for exclusive model debuts by high-end manufacturers.

Lexus LF-LC

Pebble Beach has recently seen the world premier of several luxury Bentleys but also our very own Lexus GS at last year’s event. Not to mention that back in 2009, Aston Martin chose to reveal the most expensive and one of the most unique cars in the company’s history, the Aston Martin One-77, during the Villa d’Este event.

Among such iconic company, we can happily reveal that – for the first time to my knowledge – a Lexus concept has been selected to participate in the exclusive Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este event. The LF-LC, which we revealed at the Detroit Motor Show, will be lined up along side such exceptional company as the truly unique Talbot-Lago Teardrop Coupe with coachwork by the once famous Figoni & Falaschi.

For the first time, our California-based Calty Design Research design centre will be counted among the legends in the automotive design hall of fame. And what a way to do justice to the fantastic work done by Ben and Edward on the LF-LC!

Edward Lee, Ben Chang, CALTY design