Newport’s Audrain Concours Is Becoming the East Coast’s Pebble Beach
1938 165 Figoni et Falaschi cabriolet. Photo: Jim Motavalli
The Audrain Newport Concours and Motor Week has its base at the Audrain Museum on historic Bellevue Avenue in this Rhode Island summer retreat. The street is the same one where the wealthy heir William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. tested his early automobiles circa 1900 and 1901. His famous Newport Automobile Races—pioneering motorsport in the US before a move to New York—were held at the dirt Aquidneck Park horse track nearby. A 1901 Panhard et Levassor Type B1 that raced at Newport that year is in the Audrain Museum's current show.
"The Vanderbilt Cup races started in Newport," said Howard Kroplick, an exhibitor at the Audrain Concours and the author of the books Vanderbilt Cup Races of Long Island and The Long Island Motor Parkway. "It makes a lot of sense to hold a concours here in Newport. Willie Vanderbilt would have held the races right on Bellevue Avenue if they'd let him."