This year’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este runs from 15 to 17 May in Cernobbio, on Lake Como’s western shore – at the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este, a sixteenth-century cardinal’s residence turned luxury hotel, where automotive history has been staged each spring since 1929. For a weekend, the lake becomes the setting for the most rarefied car show in the world: less exhibition than atmosphere, where automobiles are treated not as machines, but as artefacts.
The question worth asking before anything else is whether it is worth the trip. The answer is specific: the cars here are not behind glass. You stand a few feet from a 1929 Bugatti Type 43 Roadster on a lawn, in open air, with the owner likely at your elbow. No barriers or ropes. The Broad Arrow auction runs live across the weekend – in 2025 it generated over €31 million, with a single 1948 Ferrari changing hands for €7.54 million in a room you could be sitting in. The global collector community – serious buyers from Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East – specifically structures their European calendar around this weekend. Pebble Beach is the only event of comparable gravity, and that is in California in August. This is the European equivalent: smaller, older, and considerably more discreet.
Eight competition classes trace the full arc of automotive history. The class names alone tell you the register you’re operating in: Automotive Tailoring: The Decade of Opulence covers coachbuilt masterpieces from 1924 to 1934; Every Scratch Tells A Story: Ageing Gracefully Without Restoration celebrates unrestored survivors, shown exactly as they are, patina and all. Around fifty vehicles compete for the Trofeo BMW Group – Best of Show, awarded by a jury of international experts. The winner receives not only the trophy but a bespoke A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Chronograph in 18-carat white gold, the Concorso’s coat of arms hand-engraved on the case back – a prize that reflects the event’s precise calibration of taste. Alongside it sits the Coppa d’Oro, decided by public vote, which has a habit of producing results that feel less predictable and occasionally more honest.
The 2026 edition carries additional weight. BMW Group Classic, co-organiser since 2009, marks 40 years of the M3 with a dedicated exhibition at Villa Erba – Touring Car Legends – with Johnny Cecotto, Emanuele Pirro and Roberto Ravaglia on hand to recount what it took to win in period. BMW Alpina appears for the first time as a fully independent manufacturer; BMW Motorrad unveils a new vision vehicle. Broad Arrow Auctions returns with more than seventy collector cars, among them a 1929 Bugatti Type 43 Roadster, a 1926 Type 37 Grand Prix, a 1990 Ferrari F40 and a 2011 BMW M3 GTS. Preview days begin Friday 15 May – the smartest move of the weekend is arriving Thursday night and walking the auction lots before the crowds have settled. The catalogued cars, as ever, are only the visible portion of what changes hands.
The programme begins properly on Friday evening: an aperitivo, exclusive briefings, a cocktail reception, the annual BMW Party and a world premiere among several across the weekend. Saturday is the heart of it – the formal parade and judging on the historic lakeside terrace of Villa d’Este, conducted with a kind of consecrated seriousness the event has maintained for nearly a century. Entry is limited; access is earned. The evening continues at Villa Visconti, where a private dinner closes the day in appropriate fashion. Jonas Kaufmann, star tenor and BMW Group Classic brand ambassador, presents the Trofeo Il Canto del Motore – the award for finest engine sound – the Concorso’s most idiosyncratic category and the one that best captures its spirit. Sunday opens Villa Erba to the public for Il Festival, and what begins as a broad, accessible celebration ends in black tie, with the Best of Show announced at the gala finale. The day that opens with a lawn and families closes with a trophy and toast.
Between the two estates, take a water taxi. The short crossing in a wood-hulled mahogany launch is not merely transport – it is the cleanest possible way to move between the weekend’s two registers.
Getting there is otherwise straightforward. Milan Malpensa or Linate, then north to the lake, with Cernobbio under an hour by road. The method is secondary to the timing.
Accommodation is where the real competition begins. Hotels in Cernobbio – particularly those within walking distance of Villa d’Este – have been filling up day-by-day. By early May, the better rooms are no longer booked so much as inherited. To stay outside this orbit is to spend the weekend in transit, which is to miss the point entirely. The Friend of the Concorso package – three nights at Villa d’Este itself, full event access – is the most direct route into the inner circle.
The Concorso is not an event to approach as a day trip. Arrive Thursday, stay within reach of the lake, leave time without structure. Much of what defines the weekend happens between the formalities: in passing conversations about provenance, the choreography of arrivals and departures, and in the way afternoon light moves across a pre-war bonnet.
It is also an event that does not scale. Its value is structurally tied to its limits. What matters most tends to happen just out of view – deals discussed, not declared; significance understood, not advertised.
The judges will begin their deliberations soon enough. The decisive moment, however, is now.
The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este runs 15–17 May 2026. Get tickets now
