The most elegant car in the world is Catalan

For the third time in history and for the first time this century, a Catalan car has won the award recognizing the world's most elegant car at the prestigious Pebble Beach concours on the west coast of the United States. The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, held annually, is the icing on the cake of Monterey Car Week, the most important automotive event of the summer, which includes races, demonstrations, and international presentations, in addition to the competition that crowned a Hispano Suiza H6C Torpedo as this year's most elegant car in the world.

The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance brings together the best of the global automotive industry and is held at the golf course in the Californian town, which regularly hosts tournaments on the American golf circuit and also the US Open. This year's edition saw a total of 229 units from 22 different countries enter the premier "Best in Show" category, which was ultimately won by a Hispano Suiza H6C Torpedo.

A true unicorn on wheels

The winning model was a unit called the 'Tulipwood' Torpedo, in reference to its impressive mahogany body, which mimics the aeronautical trends of the 1920s. This particular unit was manufactured in Barcelona in 1924, but the distinctive mahogany body is explained by the fact that its first owner was the French World War I ace pilot André Dubbonet, who also raced for Bugatti and Hispano Suiza during the interwar years of the last century.

Its mahogany body weighs just 72 kilos, which allowed this luxury sports car to limit the total weight of the whole assembly to just over 500 kilos, a technical specificity that added to the six-cylinder, eight-liter engine of 160 hp (a real savagery now does more than 180 km/h). It was one of the fastest cars of its time. Its torpedo-shaped design favored aerodynamics and air resistance, beyond giving it a unique image that arouses admiration 101 years after its production.

The Hispano Suiza H6C 'Tulipwood' Torpedo participated in some of the most important races of its time, such as the 1924 Targa Florio, finishing in sixth place. The car changed hands several times until it was returned to Hispano Suiza in 1955, where it was fully restored, with just over 24,000 kilometers. Between the 1960s and 1970s, the model continued to change hands between Europe and the United States, until it was auctioned by RM Sotheby's in 2022 for a final price of $9.25 million, becoming the most expensive Catalan car in history, an award that now includes the most prestigious elegance prize.