Villa d’Este, Lake Como, Italy — 2026
In 1929, someone decided that the perfect location to celebrate the world’s most beautiful cars was a lakeside villa in northern Italy. They were correct. Nearly a century later, Villa d’Este is still frozen in time — and the machines that gather on its lawns each year carry the full weight of that history.
The Concours
A Bugatti from before there were highways. A Silver Arrow that rewrote the formula of Grand Prix racing. A Lamborghini that made every designer who came after reconsider what a supercar should be. These are not museum pieces displayed behind glass — they are running machines, presented on the grass above the lake, judged by people who understand what makes them matter.
The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este is the oldest automotive concours in the world and the one that has lost the least in the translation from its original intentions. The machines here are extraordinary. The attention paid to them is equal.
Pagani and the Lake
Pagani chose Lake Como to show the world what comes next. They always choose this lake.
This is not coincidence. Como does not only host automotive history — it creates it. The combination of the setting, the audience, and the weight of occasion produces conditions where a reveal becomes a declaration. Pagani understands this. They have used it repeatedly, and it has worked every time.
The new Pagani arrived at Como carrying the same philosophy that produced every car the company has built: the refusal to separate engineering and art, the insistence that a car can be both the most technically sophisticated object in the room and the most beautiful one.
Fuori Concorso
Beyond the formal concours, the streets and piazzas surrounding Villa d’Este fill with machines that did not make the lawn but belong to the same world — manufacturers, collectors, and enthusiasts who come to Como for the same reason everyone does: because this is where automotive culture is taken most seriously.
RUNDAAN documented the concours fields, the Fuori Concorso, and the moments that do not appear in press releases.
Coverage by RUNDAAN International. Return to the Journal.