Entertaining and informed commentary by former Standard-Triumph and Ford rally man-turned-author Graham Robson kept things moving

Competition was fierce for the top honours in the inaugural Culzean Autoclassica Concours, held in front of Scotland’s magnificent Culzean Castle on Sunday August 24, with some truly superb cars coming under the four-man judging team’s scrutiny.

The judges faced a near-impossible task deciding whether an immaculately restored Ford Cortina Mk1 deserved higher marks than a beautifully original but patinated 1899 single-cylinder De Dion, but in the end they awarded first place to Iain Hardy’s Jaguar 240 saloon. Second went to Kenneth Campbell’s BMW 323i, and third to Stewart Ross and his Dino 246. Octane sponsored the concours and donated trophies for the worthy winners.

Thankfully, after overnight rain the day itself was warm and dry – although muddy grass gave the concours entrants a lot of last-minute tyre and wheelarch cleaning to do – which helped attract a bumper crowd to the second day of the Autoclassica. Entertaining and informed commentary by former Standard-Triumph and Ford rally man-turned-author Graham Robson kept things moving, and every corner of Culzean’s beautiful and thickly wooded estate seemed to hold something new: from historic race cars in the shadow of the Castle stables to autocross competitions on one of the car parks.

This was the first year Culzean had hosted a fully fledged Autoclassica after a smaller trial run last September, and, while there are inevitably a few niggles to iron out, it bodes well for an even more impressive event next year.