The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance turns 75 this year, and the 2026 class list reflects both the event’s long traditions and its willingness to broaden what belongs on the lawn. The show takes place Sunday, August 16, 2026, and Ferrari is the primary featured marque. That alone makes the event significant, since more than 900 Ferraris have appeared at Pebble Beach over the decades, and the marque became the Concours’ first ongoing postwar featured brand beginning in 1973.
This year, Ferrari is not being treated as one single category. The official class list breaks the marque into several focused groups: Ferrari Competition: NART, Ferrari Competition: Le Mans Winners, Ferrari Grand Touring, and Ferrari Vignale. That range gives Pebble Beach a chance to tell the Ferrari story through racing, road cars and coachbuilding. The NART class should be especially interesting for American enthusiasts, since Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team played a major role in building Ferrari’s reputation in the United States.
The Vignale connection adds another layer. Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale is the featured coachbuilder for 2026, and Pebble Beach describes the firm’s work as a defining expression of 1950s Italian design. Vignale-bodied Ferraris, Lancias, Fiats and Maseratis represent the era when Italian coachbuilders could turn a chassis into something closer to sculpture.
Speed, Streamlining and Racing Roots
Beyond Ferrari, several major classes look directly at speed. Early Speedsters, limited to pre–World War I cars, will celebrate machines such as the Stutz Bearcat and Mercer Raceabout, stripped-down performance cars from the earliest years of American motoring. These cars were often little more than power, seats, wheels and attitude, but they helped establish the idea that an automobile could be thrilling rather than merely useful.
Another visually strong category is Streamliner Coupés, focused on prewar aerodynamic design. Pebble Beach describes the late 1930s as a period when streamlining reshaped everything from appliances to automobiles, and the best streamlined cars still look dramatic today. Flowing fenders, sloped grilles, teardrop silhouettes and fastback tails gave these machines a futuristic look at a time when the automobile was still finding its modern form.
The event will also honor its own history with a Pebble Beach Road Races class. The first Pebble Beach Concours was held in 1950 alongside the Pebble Beach Road Races, which ran through the Del Monte Forest until 1956. Those races helped bring names such as Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles and Richie Ginther to the Monterey Peninsula before racing moved to the purpose-built Laguna Seca circuit.
A Broader Definition of Classic
One of the most important 2026 classes may be Japanese Motorsport. Pebble Beach says the class will feature Le Mans cars from several Japanese manufacturers, and Autoweek has reported that this marks the first time an entire official class of Japanese cars will appear at the Concours since the event began in 1950. That is a major sign of how much the collector world has changed. Japanese performance history is no longer waiting to become classic; it is being recognized on one of the hobby’s most prestigious stages.
The full class list also keeps the traditional Pebble Beach foundation intact. There will be categories for Antique, American Classic, Packard, Duesenberg, Rolls-Royce Prewar, European Classic, Prewar Preservation, Postwar Preservation, and several postwar touring and sports-racing groups. Other notable classes include Automobiles of Royal India, Land Speed Record Car, and Historic Jaguars.
Together, the 2026 categories show why Pebble Beach still matters. It is not just a beauty contest for expensive old cars. It is a curated argument about what automotive history should include. This year that story stretches from brass-era speedsters to Ferrari racers, from aerodynamic prewar dream cars to Japanese endurance machines, and from preservation survivors to record-setting speed machines. For its 75th year, Pebble Beach is not only looking back. It is expanding the definition of what belongs in the canon.
