Salon Privé is changing how it crowns its finest cars in 2026, and the shift says plenty about where top-tier collecting is heading.
When the event returns to Blenheim Palace in September, it will present two distinct Best of Show trophies for the first time in its 21-year history.
The move gives traditional coach-built classics and contemporary performance icons their own space, rather than asking judges to weigh very different eras of automotive achievement against one another.
At a glance
- Salon Privé 2026 will introduce a second Best of Show award, separating Concours d’Élégance and Concours d’Excellence honours.
- The new Concours d’Excellence award will focus on modern collector cars from 2001 to 2026, including supercars and hypercars.
- Judging is scheduled for Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 September 2026 at Blenheim Palace, with both trophies presented during the Thursday gala dinner.
Two trophies for two collecting eras
The established Best of Show Concours d’Élégance award will continue to recognise Classic Motor Cars up to the year 2000.
Alongside it, the new Best of Show Concours d’Excellence will honour the strongest modern collector car from Salon Privé’s supercar and hypercar categories, covering cars built from 2001 through 2026.
That distinction is more than administrative housekeeping.
A coach-built pre-war or post-war classic and a carbon-intensive hybrid hypercar are judged through different lenses, from preservation and provenance to innovation, engineering ambition and cultural impact.
Salon Privé’s adjustment acknowledges that the collector garage has changed, while still protecting the event’s traditional centre of gravity.
The Concours d’Élégance winner will remain Salon Privé’s representative for The Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Awards, though organisers will retain flexibility to nominate either Best of Show winner in future years.
Modern performance cars move onto the concours lawn
The new award follows the addition of two modern-focused classes for 2026, Limited Production Supercars and Hypercar Heaven.
These categories are intended to spotlight cars that have shaped performance over the past 25 years, a period defined by limited-run engineering projects, hybrid flagships and increasingly collectible electric hypercars.
Among the most significant early entries is the 2025 Rimac Nevera Time Attack, which will become the first fully electric car to compete in Salon Privé’s concours history.
It is one of only 12 Nevera Time Attack editions built worldwide, and this example is the only one finished in its red and black colour combination.
The car also carries a notable backstory, having completed a 2,700-kilometre drive from Yorkshire to the Dalmatian coast, the longest journey undertaken in a Nevera and a feat personally recognised by Mate Rimac.
BMW will also be represented in the new Limited Production Supercars class by the 2026 Skytop, one of the most exclusive road cars the marque has created.
Limited to 50 examples worldwide, the Skytop evolved from BMW’s Villa d’Este concept into a production model after strong demand, with only two expected to come to the UK.
Its bespoke coachwork is paired with BMW’s 617bhp twin-turbocharged V8, placing it neatly in the space between modern grand tourer and future collectible.
The Hypercar Heaven class will include the 2019 Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 Prototype 1, a car with unusually direct factory significance.
It served as Lamborghini’s original development vehicle for the brand’s first hybrid flagship and completed more than 47,000 kilometres of factory testing.
Rather than being dismantled after its development work, the prototype was restored by Lamborghini, released into private ownership and remains road legal.
M100 judging and the September timetable
To support the modern classes, Salon Privé will use the M100 judging format for the Concours d’Excellence award.
The internationally recognised 100-point system was developed for contemporary collector cars, where traditional originality-focused judging doesn’t always suit the technology, materials and development cycles involved.
It gives judges a more relevant framework for assessing advanced performance cars without forcing them into criteria designed primarily for older classics.
Judging will take place across Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 September 2026.
Both Best of Show trophies will be presented during the Thursday evening Gala Dinner, where Concours d’Excellence finalists will join the Concours d’Élégance contenders.
Tickets and concours entry applications are available through Salon Privé’s official channels.
For collectors, the change should make the Blenheim Palace lawns more representative of what serious garages look like today, where a coach-built classic and a low-volume hypercar can both be important, but for very different reasons.
