The Second Annual 10,000 Lakes Concours d’Elegance – Always Have A “Plan B”
People’s Choice Award – 1956 Lone Star Meteor “Marilyn”, owner Steve Schussler.
As the summer boat show season begins to ramp up across the country, last weekend the folks in Minnesota were also celebrating the start of summer with the Second Annual 10,000 Lakes Concours d’Elegance along the shoreline of beautiful Lake Minnetonka, in the historic city of Excelsior, MN.
With help from the Bob Speltz Land O’Lakes ACBS Chapter and Dave Bortner from Freedom Boat Service, this year’s show included a number of classic boats, which is a perfect fit for both the spectators and participants. Dave sent us this report from the show on Sunday, June 1st. – Texx
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Second Annual 10,000 Lakes Concours d’Elegance
Report by Dave Bortner – Photos by Dave Tobin
The Second Annual 10,000 Lakes Concours almost didn’t happen!
Three-and-a-half inches of rain overnight Saturday flooded the Excelsior Commons, normally a beautiful park-like setting on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. Randy Guyer and his crew quickly put together “Plan B”, and moved everyone to Lake Street, behind the park.
Fortunately, the cars and boats were able to relocate to Lake Street behind the park. Joining the wide variety of classic cars on display for this year’s 10,000 Lakes Concours d’Elegance were a number of classic boats from the area.
Morning showers made for a light crowd at first, but as the sun made an appearance, everything and everybody dried out, and the crowd soon appeared.
Alan Lizee’s very cool 1966 Old Town sailing canoe.
The 10,000 Lakes Concours is a well-managed effort to bring a world-class automobile Concours event to the twin cities, and this year marked the first year for boats at the show.
Today’s header boat, a spectacular 1927 26′ Dart “White Cap”, owner Steve Wozniak.
Working with the Bob Speltz Land O’Lakes Chapter of ACBS, and Freedom Boat Service, a number of interesting and eclectic boats were nominated and invited to participate. This made for an interesting display that captured the imagination of the Concours crowd, and led to many, many questions about these “old boats.”
Interested spectators learning about the Grech families 1937 Century Utility “Nancy Jane”.
Dave Bortner’s all-original 1973 Century Coronado.
As expected, the selection of classic cars this year was fantastic – here is just a glimpse of what was there.
1937 Cord 812 Sedan, Mark and Gloria Desch.
A very nice, and very rare 1959 Chrysler Windsor Town & Country Station Wagon, owned by Milt McMillen (We can see this one towing a Chris-Craft ‘up to the cabin’ can’t you?)
Myron and Rhonda Cottrell’s stunning 1959 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster (a top-up kind of day)
1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Normale, owned by Kevin Caulfield.
A very nice 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280SL owned by Mark Flaten.
The 10,000 Lakes Concours d’Elegance is proud to partner with and benefit the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute, The Lazarus Project and The ICA Food Shelf. To learn more about this event, you can Click Here to go to their website.
Plans are already underway for an expanded boat display at the 2015 event.
Dave Bortner
Freedom Boat Service
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Thanks Dave & Dave for sharing this story with us today. Any time classic boats can be introduced into a new event like this should be considered as a positive step for the hobby in terms of expanding the hobbies reach to new markets and potential new members. Nice work everyone!
Texx
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Very nice!
It is always good to have cars and boats at the same show!
Kudos to Dave for spearheading the boat portion of the show.
“People’s” apparently like pink. Nice cover with the Minnihaha in the background.
Today’s header shot which features Steve Wozniak in “WHITE CAP” his very rare 1927 26′ Indian Lake Dart from the BSLOL Chapter Boat Show in 2011.
The historic “MINNEHAHA” in the back ground. – Dane Anderson photo.