Words: Michael Teo Van Runkle - Photos: Drew Manley
November 2 at 7:30am, Las Vegas: Bleary eyed tourists stumble out into the brilliant morning sunshine, devoted gamblers and committed afterparty heathens, welcomed back to life by the feverish sights and sounds of supercars running up the Strip first thing on a Sunday morning. Welcome to Las Vegas Concours weekend, a three-day fête that aims to combine the best aspects of Monterey Car Week, Moda Miami, and Villa d’Este all within the convenient confines of the Wynn resort, casino, and golf course.
Pagani chose the 2025 Concours at Wynn Las Vegas to make the world debut of a new Huayra dubbed the “Codalunga Speedster.” The newest Pagani stretches nearly every sculptural form on the hypercar’s already dramatically elongated body, enhancing the aerodynamic silhouette in homage to historical racecars of the 1950s and 60s. Finished in a semi-matte ocean spray green and of course, featuring a twin-turbocharged V12 engine beneath the eternal rear decklid and interior artistry highlighted by quintessential exposed shifter linkages, the car drew a swarming crowd of concours attendees as founder and designer Horacio Pagani himself presented his eponymous company’s latest and greatest.
The fact that Pagani even chose the Wynn Concours’ fourth annual show as the time to debut the Codalunga Speedster hints at the marked shift for the event this year, which expanded in breadth and scope to appeal to a wider swath of automotive enthusiasts. And not just with more cars, more debuts from more brands, and elevated amenities—but also with driving opportunities that go beyond the typical park-and-show Concours experiences.
“This year we have over 600 vehicles, so we have over 1.1 billion dollars of quality automotive out on the field,” Wynn COO Brian Gullbrants boasted. “This is the largest collection ever of Paganis at 44, the largest collection of Veyrons, in fact the largest gathering of Bugattis at almost 70 cars. And we have over 230 different Lamborghinis on display. This is in addition to the 130 judged Concours cars in 10 different classes. But mostly, it's a place to just come enjoy the cars and hospitality and have a great time.”
Along with the new Huayra on Pagani’s stand, the enormous group of Pagani owners parked in long arcs on the Wynn golf course. Bugatti, meanwhile, arrived en masse too in celebration of two decades since the iconic Veyron arguably inaugurated the hypercar era back in 2005. Further out onto the golf course, hundreds of Lamborghinis almost felt like an entirely separate event, stretching from multiple Miuras to modern Venenos, Revueltos, Sterratos—even a Cummins-swapped LM002 “Rambo Lambo” on display, perhaps the pinnacle of Italian sacrilege (and the loudest, beyond any reasonable doubt).
But all the classics in the Concours judging class still took center stage beneath the ominous watchful eye of The Sphere, that brilliant blight on Sin City’s ever-changing skyline. A Mercedes-Benz 680 S Barker Tourer took home the Wynn’s Pre-War Best in Show while a 1951 Ferrari 212 Export won Best in Show Post-War amid the strong field. The Golden Era of Hollywood made a strong showing, too, including a Jaguar XKSS and Porsche Speedster formerly owned by Steve McQueen and brought to the Wynn by the Petersen Automotive Museum.
Fast & Furious star Sung Kang’s Datsun 240Z restomod built by VeilSide trended in another direction entirely, bolting on a hefty dose of carbon fiber in similar fashion to the HWA Evo but with a far more pronounced Tokyo Auto Salon aesthetic inspired by Han’s RX-7 from the film franchise’s infamous third installment. Individual throttle bodies, hooded gauges, modern four-bolt wheels… Trying to capture all the little details on so many cars, old and new, could take up a full day: the blobular gearshifter on a 1952 Pegaso Z102 out of Rhode Island, hand-painted art on an air-cooled 911, and an original toolkit for a 1925 Rolls-Royce Springfield Silver Ghost.
“For about 11 years, Rolls Royce built cars in Springfield, Massachusetts,” the Silver Ghost’s owner Harry Clark explained. “That's because the U.S. was the largest market, and this helped circumvent tax issues… The owner's manual is a full book and it basically gives the chauffeur or the owner the ability to do almost anything to the car. And in there, it has actually a page of the tools that Silver Ghost comes with. So for example, during Concours judging, you have to open up the fuse boxes, so it’s brilliant, fun to literally just pull out the original screwdriver with the wooden handle and be able to use it.”
Talk about the exact opposite to highly technologized modern hypercars, including a road-legal Mercedes-AMG One that uses an F1-derived hybrid powertrain. Imagine an owner trying to solve a check engine light with a screwdriver, rather than a scan tool. And don’t ask about fire risk when parked alongside $1.1 billion of rolling automotive art.
And of course, motorsport fit into the mix, including a 1988 Porsche 962C owned by Dempsey Motorsport and multiple Red Bull Formula 1 cars from the current era. McLaren showed off the firm’s new Project Endurance prototype, a factory-supported customer racing program that will offer 12 days per year driving in the LDMh class. And a wide range of restomod firms in attendance included Singer, Gunther Werks, Rezvani, and HWA—the latter of which brought the fifth prototype of its 190E 2.5-16 Evo II project, the first to arrive in the United States as proof of concept from AMG cofounder Hans Werner Aufrecht, who himself flew in from Germany to join the festivities.
But almost more importantly than the spectacular breadth of the cars on display at the Wynn Concours, the weekend also included multiple opportunities for entrants to drive—and for the public to witness these pieces of rolling artwork actually in motion. The usual Wynn Concours parade down the Las Vegas strip boomed out Sunday morning, along part of the F1 Grand Prix track already in preparation for later in November. Magnus Walker and Horacio Pagani led rallies out into bat country. And a group of intrepid drivers also tried out supercars on the racetrack at Speed Vegas, always an eye-catching venue on the side of the 15 freeway when driving in from Los Angeles.
Though certain elements of the Wynn Concours reflect commonalities with Pebble Beach, Villa d’Este, as well as other events including Moda Miami, The Bridge, and Amelia Island, the the Wynn purposefully hopes to cater to a wider swath of of automotive enthusiasts equally as much as the convenience factor of Las Vegas might help to attract those attendees on hand for a few days of testing whether what happens in Vegas truly stays in Vegas.
