Events & Tours
These, you need to know about
In this article, the author presents a list of top 10 "hidden gem" cars from international events in 2019. These cars are chosen based on the emotions they evoke and their predicted impact in the future. The list includes unique and historically important models such as the 1969 Howmet TX Turbine, 1929 Mercedes Benz 710 SS, and the 1912 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. The article provides a brief history of each car and their current owners.
Even just the larger international events of 2019, the number of cars (and not just the cars!) that we’ve been able to admire has been incredible. We’ve therefore decided to play a game of finding the top 10 ‘hidden gems’. Unlike our rankings in The Key, which present the Top 100 Collectors, this is not down to scientific or objective research. But, rather, this is an instinctive choice, linked to the emotions that the sight of these extraordinary models has brought to us, and based on our prediction that, in future, you will still hear talk of these vehicles.
1) 1969 Howmet TX Turbine, seen at Pebble Beach (USA)
Few, in fact very few, know of the Howmet TX (an acronym of Turbine eXperimental), in part because only two were created and their life was like that of a meteor. Produced by the Howmet Corporation of New York (USA), a company specialising in helicopters, and designed by Robert McKee Engineering, it was equipped with a turbine Continental Aviation Engine. The Howmet is equipped with a 350 CV, 57,000 rpm engine, and it debuted at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1968 before running, with rare success, in various endurance competitions – amongst which were the 24 Hours at Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring. To this day, it is the only turbine-engine car to have won a race: the Heart of Dixie in June 1968, on the track at Huntsville Alabama. At Pebble Beach, the Austrian collector Andreas Mohringer (number 33 in our Top 100 Collectors 2019) brought, fully functional, the car with chassis #1.
