Rare collector motorcars, fine dining and oceanfront mansions, road tours, wine tasting, fine art, and private museum tours help kick off the summer season in grand style this year at the 2007 Newport Concours d'Elegance.

The three day event, from May 26th through Memorial Day, the 28th, begins the morning of May 26th, with a Newport Concours Road Tour starting out at the Park Place Holdings collector car facility, and ends with a full day of classic and antique automobiles on display for viewing and judging at the oceanfront Belle Mer property, Memorial Day, Monday, May 28th. In between are vineyard visits, wine tasting, fine art, mansion tours, road tours, oceanfront fine dining with a charity auction, historic automobile films, tech sessions and events galore! And lest this seems too indulgent, proceeds from the 2007 Newport Concours d'Elegance benefit several charitable causes, including the Boys & Girls Club of Newport, IYRS, The Larz Anderson Museum of Transportation and the Collectors Foundation.

In keeping with Newport's nautical traditions and seaside location, the 2007 Newport Concours d'Elegance also featuresVintage and Classic Cars carrying Boattail and Skiff-style bodies. Boattail Speedsters are considered, by connoisseurs and collectors, to be among the most beautiful and glamorous body styles ever created.

"This event is created by car enthusiasts, for car enthusiasts and to increase everyone's awareness of historic motor cars," says John Sweeney, former Director of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum, one of the non-profit institutions benefitting from the event. "These are historic automobiles, rarely brought out into the general public."

Carriages and coaches from before the turn-of-the-century, and cars from 1903 to 1971, are featured in this rain-or-shine, three-day series of events. Included is the oldest known Cadillac, an unrestored Crane Simplex Boattail Speedster, a debutante 100 point, 1959 SCAA Corvette, reportedly containing the engine from the first Caroll Shelby Scagliettie Prototype Race Car, and many rare, one-off body styles. There may even be the unrestored 1910 Suffolk County "Black Maria" police prisoner wagon.
"The beauty and pageantry of this 2007 Newport Concours d'Elegance will amaze the long-time collector, and those coming to something like this for the very first time," says Newport Concours chairman Mark Hurwitz.

For more information on the 2007 Newport Concours d'Elegance, visit www.thenewportelegance.org or e-mail thenewportelegance@yahoo.com. Newport Concours d'Elegance, PO Box 299, Newport, Rhode Island, 02840, telephone: 401/767-7967.