The collector car market, in your inbox
Classic car news, hand-picked vehicles, and auction coverage. Choose what lands in your inbox.
Salon Privé, the concours-and-supercar garden party that has become one of the UK's most exclusive automotive gatherings, returned to the grounds of Blenheim Palace this week for its 21st edition. The show opened on Wednesday, September 2, with a trio of high-profile debuts that gave the traditionally classic-car-heavy Concours field a distinctly modern jolt, while 70 cars spread across the lawn kept one foot planted firmly in coachbuilt history.
The headline act belonged to Lamborghini, which brought the Revuelto SV to Britain for the first time. Sant'Agata Bolognese's latest flagship is now the fastest and most powerful production Lamborghini the company has ever built, a title that carries real weight given the marque's back catalog of hard-edged specials. Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann framed the SV as the purest distillation of what the brand is chasing, telling attendees the car represents technical perfection and driving pleasure at their highest expression yet. For a look at how the new flagship ties into the brand's past, Motorious recently covered Lamborghini's Miura homage built on the Revuelto platform, which shows just how much the current range owes to the cars that came before it.
Brabus, the German tuning house best known for reworking Mercedes-Benz and Mercedes-AMG products into something considerably more extreme, used Salon Privé for two UK firsts. The bigger story was the BODO, a carbon-fiber-bodied supercar powered by a 5.2-liter biturbo V12 and limited to just 77 examples worldwide, a run small enough that most enthusiasts will only ever see one in person at a show like this. Brabus also brought along the 800 Cabrio, its drop-top take on the Mercedes-AMG G63, proving that even the brand's off-road-bred SUV can be persuaded into open-air, high-output territory.
Polestar took the show in a different direction with the UK debut of the Polestar 4, an electric SUV built around everyday usability rather than outright performance numbers. Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller said the model was designed to broaden the brand's appeal by adding more interior space and utility without abandoning the driving character that has defined the lineup so far. It's a reminder that Salon Privé, despite its concours pedigree, has increasingly become a venue where electric and combustion machinery share the same lawn.
Salon Privé co-founder David Bagley called the opening day truly exceptional, pointing to both the quality of the cars gathered and the trust manufacturers placed in the event to host their debuts. That trust is really the story here: Lamborghini, Brabus, and Polestar all chose Blenheim Palace over any number of larger, flashier venues to introduce new metal to the UK market, a vote of confidence that speaks to how far Salon Privé has come since it was founded.
The event continues through Sunday, September 6, with Concours d'Elegance judging and further displays rounding out the week. For readers curious about what else is turning heads on the market right now, Motorious recently rounded up some of the wildest supercars currently for sale, a fitting companion to a week built entirely around the newest and rarest cars in the world.
