The San Marino Motor Classic

Contents

1. How a car reaches the lawn
2. The weekend around the show
3. Origins and growth
4. A broad field on one lawn
5. Where the comparison with Pebble Beach stops

Exotic and rare cars, which Mike Kobeissi collects, are the raw material of the San Marino Motor Classic, a judged concours held each year on the lawn of Lacy Park near Pasadena. Its year begins long before show day. For the American muscle and pony car classes, a class cochairman told Hot Rod in 2017 that the classes are fixed in September of the previous year, that recruiting runs all year at dozens of car events in and beyond Southern California, and that every entrant submits a photograph and a detailed description of the car.⁵ Cars meant for judging are held to original condition, while cars on display only are given more room, because the show tries to take as many entries as it can for the charities it supports.⁵

Figure

How a muscle car reaches the judged field

1. 01
   Set the classesClasses for the coming show are fixed in September of the previous year.
2. 02
   RecruitClass organizers scout dozens of car events in Southern California and beyond, all year long.
3. 03
   EnterEach entrant sends a photograph and a detailed description of the car.
4. 04
   ScreenCars to be judged are held to original or original equipped condition, not modified.
5. 05
   PlaceCars that will not be judged get more latitude, since the show aims to take as many as it can.

How a car reaches the lawn

Entry is open but not casual. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2017 that entrants paid a fee per vehicle and that prizes were offered in 45 classes, among them four divisions of Ferraris, four classes of Porsches, three divisions of American big block muscle cars, a class for American pickup trucks through 1973 and a special class for American postwar orphan marques such as Edsel, Kaiser, Nash, Hudson and Studebaker.¹ The chairman, the San Marino collector Aaron Weiss, told the paper that the odds of winning something were good.¹

Once a class fills, the organizers can divide it. Hot Rod described the muscle car class of 2015 growing to 16 cars, four of them still with their original owners, and being split in two for judging, GM and other makes.⁶ By 2017 the same organizers ran four classes: GM hardtops and sedans, other makes in the same body styles, convertibles of every make, and a class for pony cars.⁵ The cochairman was candid that the screening is not perfect and that a modified car occasionally slips through.⁵

The weekend around the show

The show is the second half of a weekend. The organizers’ own overview describes the Symphony of Cars Gala on the evening before, when fifteen cars of the twentieth century are presented one at a time on a stage while an orchestra plays music written in the year each car was built; more than 650 guests attended in 2025.⁷ On Sunday the gates open at 9 a.m., spectators move between the show field, a midway of 40 trade booths and a reception tent, and the day closes at 3 p.m. with the Best in Show awards.⁷ In 2025 those awards went to a 1917 Packard Runabout and a 1952 Chrysler Ghia, chosen from more than 350 cars.⁷

Figure

The show weekend at Lacy Park

1. 01
   Saturday eveningThe Symphony of Cars Gala presents fifteen motor cars on a stage, each with music written in its year of manufacture.
2. 02
   9:00 a.m. SundayGates open to the public.
3. 03
   MiddaySpectators move between the show field, a midway of 40 trade booths and a VIP reception.
4. 04
   3:00 p.m.The day ends with the presentation of the Best in Show awards.

The setting shapes the event. Lacy Park covers about 30 acres of lawn ringed by mature trees, and the overview notes that the city normally closes it to visitors from outside San Marino on weekends, which makes the show day unusual for the park itself.⁷

Origins and growth

Sports Car Digest traces the show to an earlier Los Angeles Concours, which Weiss and the late Ben Reiling, with a third partner, reestablished in 2011 under the San Marino name, with the theme Design in Motion. Its 2026 edition presented about 332 cars.² The Times called the seventh annual show in 2017 Southern California’s answer to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and expected about 350 cars and some 7,000 visitors.¹ The Sports Car Digest recap of that year put the crowd at 10,000, named a 1938 Delahaye 135 roadster with Chapron coachwork as Best of Show Pre War and a 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SL alloy Gullwing as Best of Show Post War, and noted a new class for Japanese makes, won by a 1967 Mazda R360 microcar.³

Figure

The 2017 show in four numbers

Rare cars on display

350+

Attendees

10,000

Vehicles earning class honors or special awards

100+

Raised for charity since the show began

$1.6 million

The date has moved. Autoweek’s report on the 15th year explained that the 2025 show was held in August to attract entries from Pebble Beach, which it did, but the heat kept some visitors away, and the 2026 show returned to June with a high of 84 degrees and 332 cars on the lawn.⁴

Money raised is part of the design. Pasadena Humane lists the show as a supporter for more than a decade, with proceeds also going to the Rotary Club of San Marino and other local nonprofits.⁸ By 2017 the event had raised $1.6 million for charity in total.³

A broad field on one lawn

Most concours fields are dominated by stately American and European cars from the first half of the twentieth century. Hot Rod observed that San Marino has those, but that its field is also open to late model sports cars, hot rods, Volkswagens, woodies and muscle cars.⁶ The 2017 recap listed a range running from Brass and Nickel Era cars through American muscle and hot rods, with Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes Benz alongside Jaguar, Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin.³ Autoweek’s 2026 visit found the Classic Car Club of America’s grand machines beside restomods, a few Ferraris and a lone 1961 Lancia Appia parked under a tree.⁴

Figure

Two days of the 2017 show

	Saturday gala	Sunday show
Start	6 p.m.	Gates open at 9 a.m.
Admission	$250	$30 at the door or $25 in advance, children under 12 free
Hospitality	An evening gala with a musical performance	Nine gourmet food trucks and a VIP reception tent
Awards	None	Ceremony at 1:30 p.m., gates close at 3 p.m.

Individual entries show how wide that range runs. The Times preview of 2017 listed a 1939 Delage that Gene Kelly drove in An American in Paris, a 1965 Ford GT350, a selection of Ferraris from the collector David Lee and even a restored 1964 hearse.¹ At the same show, Lee’s 1964 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Competizione was named the Most Significant Ferrari.³ In the muscle classes, a 1964 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt, one of a documented 100 built for Ford’s drag racing program, won its class and the Muscle Car Review trophy.⁵ Two years earlier the field held a 1966 Buick Gran Sport bought new by the couple who still owned it, used for years as the family car and for occasional nights at a drag strip, then given a two year frame off restoration beginning in 2011.⁶ A show that places a hearse, a film car and a drag car on one lawn is closer in spirit to a club reunion than to a museum gallery.

Where the comparison with Pebble Beach stops

The nickname Pebble Beach of Southern California is fair about ambition and generous about scale. San Marino is a city park show with class organizers recruiting their own fields, and its chairman told the Times that an entrant’s odds of taking home a prize were pretty good, a long way from the scarcity of a Monterey ribbon.¹ Its screening relies on entrants’ photographs and descriptions, and its organizers concede that a car can slip past the rules.⁵ Its crowd also varies with the calendar; the organizers counted about 5,000 spectators, exhibitors and volunteers in 2025, the hot August year, against 10,000 attendees in 2017.⁷³ Readers who want the larger frame can start with the concours d’elegance and the collector car market. Anyone weighing the purchase of a show car, or of a property with room to keep one, should take that decision to their own advisors, not to a class ribbon.