I cannot ever recall going almost straight from a prestigious concours event to The Pub. Not to a pub, but to the famous Pub where dear Oliver Reed finally drank himself to death. The purpose was not to follow in his footsteps but to watch the Canadian Grand Prix. After the Valletta Concours 2026, it was something of a day of contrasts.
For this its ninth edition, the Valletta Concours 2026 moved to the spectacular Triton Square with its magnificent Chevalier Vincent Apap-designed Triton Fountain. The square is only a few hundred yards from the original Saint George’s Square but offered much more space for the event as well as a welcome degree of shade from the trees.
The extra capacity allowed concours organiser John Saliba and his brother Joel to create yet another very successful variation on the traditional layout of competing cars – namely to provide space to invite Maltese car clubs to show members’ vehicles. There was a fine display of local Triumph owners’ machinery in the square, Ferrari owners’ cars outside the Renzo Piano-designed Parliament Building and a superbly variegated collection of Volkswagens, from split-window vans through Type 2s and Karmann Ghias to regular saloons.
John had once again assembled a collection of almost entirely Malta-preserved or -restored vehicles, and the winner of the Best of Show award was the local 1939 SS100 roadster of Anthony Axisa (pictured above). This was a very popular win, since for the past two years Best of Show had gone to two Indian-owned Rolls-Royces.
There were 13 classes, starting with a Ferrari-Pininfarina group judged by charming ex-Pininfarina man Lorenzo Ramaciotti, who rightly chose a very fine 1986 Testarossa, belonging to Matthew Mifsud, as the class winner. We spent considerable time at one of the splendid lunches discussing the future of Ferrari design and whether the new Luce is actually a Ferrari. The 13 classes finished with a class of Popular Classics. This class was won by an ‘as new’ restored 1962 Toyota Toyopet Tiara RT20 (pictured below) – and no, I hadn’t heard of it either, but it was a perfectly presented car owned by Clint Cordina.
It was going to be difficult to argue the case of the Post-War class-winning Fiat 500 C of Thomas Cordina to be competing for Best of Show, but I tried. Whilst knowing that, as always in concours events, one has to keep in mind that this year’s BoS will be next year’s poster car played a part in the decision. There were two further outstanding class winners; one in the Modern Classic class that I was judging, a 1993 Porsche 911/930 belonging to Martin Aquilina, and an XK140 in the Jaguar class, restored by the ever-professional Chris Cachia for Gordon Vella.
Looking at these two cars, it was apparent how far concours presentation of really fine automobiles has progressed in nine years in Malta. Now all the entrants need to consider that it is not enough to just turn up with a nice shiny motor; they need to address the finer points of detailing. It is difficult to say this to owners of good cars who haven’t thought to clean the door hinges and their mounting panels, but concours events are becoming so competitive that it seems to matter. For myself, I like to include a little bit of simple prejudice in my choices and call it ‘emotional character’.
For more information on the Valetta Concours, head here.
