Gallery: a visit to Salon Prive 2013

For those that don't know, a concourse d'elegance (French for ‘competition of elegance', dropouts) is a stationary form of motorsport. And Salon Privé is one of them - a place for people to pay £825 and have their cars judged by respected gatekeepers of good taste. Each vehicle starts with 100 points, and with every minor flaw gets marked down. Some of the categories are a bit qualitative, like ‘style', but the remaining three fall under the eminently quantitative interior, exterior, and engine/chassis. Just like Pebble Beach concourse, which we observed last month.

Salon Prive is a very different event to Pebble. A much younger affair. 2013 is only its eighth year. But it's grown quickly, and the judging is fierce, so it's established itself as an important date for those inclined to see such things as important. Like investment collectors, who have been having a very good time of it of late. Concourse awards increase a car's value - by millions, in some cases - so they're essential silverware for those that describe the contents of their garage as assets.

And the competitions required to generate them are fast becoming an excuse to kettle brands that describe themselves as ‘premium' and ‘lifestyle' into a field with those that can afford to pay for them. And when the architect is money, the builder is money, the plan is money, and it's all hung on the threads of enthusiasm, you create something... interesting.

The entrance to Salon Privé has a large frontage, pegged down by women with sickle cheekbones that know everybody's first name (either Piers or Edward, it seems). They usher you into an unnecessarily long tunnel that clatters underfoot while videographers shuffle awkwardly, obviously decide if you're worth filling up their SD card with.

On the other side of the wormhole there's a large piece of grass with new car displays. It doesn't have a name. Which is odd, because everywhere, and everything else does. Many make you cringe with cultural embarrassment - pre-fab sheds with Ikea sofas are called luxury lifestyle suites. Some chairs in a semi-circle under a brolly? Luxury brand marquee. All are sparsely populated and flanked by waitresses either mid flight or on the edge of their posts, waiting to charity-mug guests with free champagne.

Beyond the fringe, you arrive at the lawn in front of Syon House. Carefully manicured representatives from mainstream manufacturers look on, faintly stunned by the boutique tuners' more gauche efforts. And the clientele. The less likely they are to be sparked out in a Wetherspoons, the more likely they are to pour over the Abel Clark Range Rover Evoque with Marilyn Monroe airbrushed on the side. It's wonderfully uncomfortable.

The votive gang fall into five stylistic categories. Men dress as either tweedy private school bursars, roaring twenties viscounts, or Apprentice candidates on a treat night. Women under 40 dress like Pippa Middleton. Women over 40 dress like Pippa Middleton, but carry a parasol. Stories involving brands and synergies and good numbers are swapped with a relaxed, end-of-term coolness, and everyone holds a mobile phone made by somebody you've never heard of.

And there's a definite enthusiasm here. Not just for money, but for the cars. Just as you'd find in a KFC carpark on a Thursday night, men crowd around cars and talk about power and handling and history and famous people that have owned them. Only they'd like you to think that they're friends with the latter, and haven't developed the same taste for Milkybar Krushems.

Weave through the Spykers and Vuhls and Lexuses and Radicals and Vencers, past barbequing crustaceans, through the unfortunately named Chubb Insurance tent, and you get to the concourse lawn. But if you get a bit lost, you'll end up round the side of Syon House, having walked through a marquee you're not supposed to go, and in the motorbike area.

The owners here are a bit different to the other guests. They fiddle with their grounds for divorce, and communicate in compression ratios and valve dimensions. ‘You heard about Dave? Yeah, he's running nine point five to one. Two point two to one final drive, too." They're having a fantastic time.

A ripple of applause over by the car concourse heralds an accolade. A man called Roger has won the Graceful Pre-War Motoring category - one of 11 classes - with his 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Tourer. He's given a modest silver cup before his car sputters off to its real-world-repelling bed, it's value slightly higher than it was a few minutes ago. Only when the MC announces the next prize - the 100 Years of Aston Martin trophy - do you realise that this year's event also celebrates 100 years of Aston Martin. And 50 years of Lamborghini. And 50 years of Porsche. A '78 Vantage, '75 Countach, and a '73 911 Carrera RSR win respectively, without having to drive more than a few feet.

This is, undoubtedly, a very strange form of motorsport. The car-enthusiast element - the thread all the lifestyle fluff hangs off - can feel a bit frail at times, pulled hither and thither by marketing and undermined by very little, y'know, driving... But behind the champagne and lobsters and massive, awful watches, there are genuine petrol heads here. They're from a different world, but they talk the same language.