Vegas Spectacle: The Quail’s Crown Sputters as Wynn Las Vegas Rises as the New King of Supercar Showcase
For decades, the Concours d’Elegance ecosystem has been dominated by iconic gatherings like Pebble Beach. But as the landscape evolves, a new titan has emerged, challenging the old guard with a unique blend of modern exotics and classic engineering marvels.
The Shifting Landscape of Automotive Perfection
The term “concours d’elegance” traditionally refers to a refined automotive show judged primarily on appearance and presentation. However, the modern car community often uses this term loosely to describe a wide array of events, from the legendary Monterey Car Week featuring the Pebble Beach Concours to the high-octane thrills of the Goodwood Festival of Speed. For enthusiasts, questions persist: Has the Goodwood Revival superseded Pebble Beach? Is Amelia Island now the gold standard? What about Moda Miami or Retromobile?
While Pebble Beach has long held the esteemed title of the king of concours, the landscape is shifting, and The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering has always been a significant rival. The Quail has long been seen as the perfect appetizer to the main event at Pebble Beach, and for a growing segment of the car community, The Quail has actually overtaken the Sunday proceedings.
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Vegas Spectacle: The Quail’s Crown Sputters as Wynn Las Vegas Rises as the New King of Supercar Showcase
For decades, the Concours d’Elegance ecosystem has been dominated by iconic gatherings like Pebble Beach. But as the landscape evolves, a new titan has emerged, challenging the old guard with a unique blend of modern exotics and classic engineering marvels.
The Shifting Landscape of Automotive Perfection
The term “concours d’elegance” traditionally refers to a refined automotive show judged primarily on appearance and presentation. However, the modern car community often uses this term loosely to describe a wide array of events, from the legendary Monterey Car Week featuring the Pebble Beach Concours to the high-octane thrills of the Goodwood Festival of Speed. For enthusiasts, questions persist: Has the Goodwood Revival superseded Pebble Beach? Is Amelia Island now the gold standard? What about Moda Miami or Retromobile?
While Pebble Beach has long held the esteemed title of the king of concours, the landscape is shifting, and The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering has always been a significant rival. The Quail has long been seen as the perfect appetizer to the main event at Pebble Beach, and for a growing segment of the car community, The Quail has actually overtaken the Sunday proceedings.
This younger crowd gravitates towards modern and new supercars and hypercars. Countless friends on Car Week tell me they skip Sunday’s Pebble Concours because they have no interest in old cars. Furthermore, the demise of the Geneva International Auto Show left a major gap in the supercar calendar, a void that The Quail has filled nicely.
Here are a few examples to illustrate the point:
Lamborghini Aventador debuted at Geneva in 2011, followed by the $ Veneno in 2013.
The Aventador’s successor, the Revuelto, had its official public debut via an online unveiling, but the Temerario (the Huracán’s successor) was first seen at The Quail in 2024.
The seven-figure Fenomeno was first shown at The Quail in 2025.
Bugatti unveiled the Chiron in Geneva in 2016, but the Bugatti Divo (2018) and Mistral (2022) were both first shown to the world at The Quail.
This list represents dozens of other examples. Simply put, The Quail has evolved into the world’s premier show for these types of vehicles.
The Wynn Las Vegas Concours: A Game-Changer
For years, I thought The Quail’s position in the global automotive hierarchy was secure. Then I attended the 2025 Las Vegas Concours (officially known as Concours at Wynn Las Vegas), and I’m no longer so sure. To be fair, I also attended the 2024 Vegas Concours and had fun, but it struck me as regional. There were some cool cars, but mostly the usual suspects. In fact, if it weren’t for a project I was working on with Czinger (which brought me along as its guest), I probably wouldn’t have bothered going this year. But man, am I glad I went.
What Exactly is the Wynn Las Vegas Concours?
The Wynn Las Vegas had an astonishing 48 Bugatti Veyrons on the lawn this year. You read that right. Of the 450 total Veyrons built, and the 100 sold in North America, 48 of them were in Vegas. Well, 49, as Bugatti brought along a beautiful white Vitesse Super Sport to celebrate the Veyron’s 20th anniversary—along with a Bolide, Centodieci, Chiron Super Sport, Divo, Mistral, and a model of the upcoming Tourbillon, the 18-cylinder hybrid that will replace the Chiron. Displaying, in one place, more than 10 percent of all the Bugatti Veyrons ever built has my head still spinning.
For those who appreciate Paganis, there were also more than 40 of them. I didn’t get the exact count (I was too busy admiring the Veyrons) but there were several Zondas including a Zonda Revolution (one of five), dozens of Huayras, a bunch of Utopias, and—worryingly for The Quail—the debut of the Huayra Codalunga Speedster Pagani plans to make 10 of at a price of $7,000,000 each before tax and tariffs, if you’re interested. (The mint green one that was in Vegas under covers belongs to Apple’s Tim Cook.) Even if these bold carbon-titanium extroverts aren’t your cup of tea, the fact that not only was the 2025 Las Vegas Concours the largest Pagani gathering ever to happen in North America, but also that Horatio Pagani (who was honored onstage by emcee Justin Bell for his contributions to car design) and his team chose to introduce a car there says something. More on that later. Back to more than 40 Paganis: That’s a larger number of cars than the factory produces in a year.
The Lamborghini section was just as mind-blowing if you’re a fan of these kinds of vehicles. First off, the 2025 Wynn Vegas Concours was the largest gathering of Lamborghinis ever. Yes, ever. Again, I didn’t count, but the number being discussed was around 230. That’s 230 of the 600 cars present that Saturday. Simply mind-blowing. Of those 230, there was a Veneno Coupe (one of three ever sold to the public; the factory kept a fourth one), a Sesto Elemento (one of 10), a Centenario Coupe (one of 20) and Convertible (one of 20), and a Reventón (one of 21). The last time I saw all those “few-offs” (as Lamborghini now calls them) together in the same place was at the factory museum. It was a flabbergasting display of precious, high-horsepower Italian metal/composites.
In an attempt at brevity, I’m leaving out all the Koenigseggs, the Gumpert Apollo, the Czingers, the Nilu, the McLaren Project Endurance race car debut, all the cars that were actually judged (including a former and insane Pebble Beach Concours-winning 1929 Mercedes-Benz 680 S Barker Tourer 26/120/180 that won prewar best of show here, too), the HWA EVO, a Mercedes-AMG One, two Oldsmobile Aerotechs, and a McLaren F1. Yeah, that’s one hell of a car show.
The Future: Can They Top This?
Two threads of conversation kept coming my way when I stopped and chatted with fellow Wynn Vegas Concours attendees. The big question: “How the hell are they going to top this next year?” No clue, but godspeed to the Wynn. The other and frankly far more intriguing query kept coming from the OEM carmakers: “Should we even bother doing The Quail next year?” Good question. Perhaps I should say godspeed to The Quail, too.
Here are some things you may not know about The Quail:
A single ticket cost $1,300 last year. That’s $1,300 as a courtesy if you’ve attended in the past (“legacy ticket holders,” I think they call ’em).
It was $1,600 for first-time attendees.
Yes, that’s expensive, but it costs OEMs about $400,000 to put a car on a show stand there. For six hours.
The Vegas Concours charges about 1/20 of that. And if you want to attend, tickets are $100 a pop. That’s about $2 per Veyron. I spoke to three different carmakers that openly questioned the need to ever attend The Quail again. Perhaps, they mused, Las Vegas and Moda Miami are enough?
Moreover, for attendees, you won’t be paying heart-attack-inducing prices for hotels (a friend stayed at a motel near Pebble that was $1,100 a night, five-night minimum), nor running around from event to event in soul-crushing traffic. Also, making dinner reservations is easy because Las Vegas is literally built for big gatherings.
The above might sound far-fetched, but just a few years ago Geneva was the center of the supercar world. I can’t predict the future, but I can assure you the Concours at Wynn Las Vegas is now on my must-attend list. You should stick it on yours, too.