Lake Como’s Car Week kicks off the high-end classic concours calendar in style

For over a century, the lawns of the Grand Hotel Villa d'Este on Lake Como have hosted some of the rarest classic cars in existence. The hotel’s Concorso d'Eleganza traces its roots back to 1929, when it began as a showcase for coachbuilders – the carrozzerie – on the shores of Lake Como.

At its peak, more than 100 entries – from Pininfarina to Ghia, Touring, Castagna and Stabilimenti Farina – would jostle for attention, as sports cars designed like spaceships and streamlined saloons were paraded on the lawns between Villa d’Este and the green-blue water of Lake Como.

Today, the BMW Group-sponsored Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este is really no different; it celebrates some of the greatest one-offs of the past century while serving as a platform for BMW to rip the covers off its latest concepts and creations. Wallpaper* was there to explore the 2026 edition (15-17 May).

‘The event has been going for over 100 years now, and has always been about these fantastic one-off classic cars that I'm always amazed by,’ says BMW Group's design director Adrian van Hooydonk. ‘For the last ten to 15 years, we've been trying to add to it in the form of concept vehicles. It was quite daunting at first, because you meet the people that collect these cars and know their cars, all of them analogue, all of them hand-built, and then we come in with something fancy and new, but over the years, people have come to appreciate that.’

From 2019, Como gained another car event in the shape of Fuoriconcorso. Set in the steep surroundings of the 17th-century Villa del Grumello, this year’s Fuoriconcorso celebrated German engineering under the banner ‘KraftMeister’. A stark contrast from the oh-so-Italian setting and the themes of past years.

Where the Villa d’Este Concorso trades on coachbuilt elegance, Fuoriconcorso leans more into automotive obscurities, youngtimers and cult classics. Think restomods and 1990s tuner cars, alongside behemoths like the 700-hp, twin-turbo V12 Mercedes-Maybach Exelero from 2005 and the 1970 psychedelic Porsche 917-043 'Hippie Car'.

With world premieres from Brabus, Alpina, Bizzarrini and Kimera Automobili, the two shows are the main pillars of Como Car Week; a series of events that rivals Monterey as the most compelling date on the global concours calendar.

The rebirth of Alpina

‘This year is quite special, because [what we’re showing is] not just a concept car, it is the relaunch of the BMW Alpina brand,’ says van Hooydonk. The weekend’s headline act came fresh from van Hooydonk’s studio, where the BMW design team had been busily developing the first glimpse of what lies in store for the Alpina name, which was brought under BMW control in early 2026.

Called the Vision BMW Alpina, the sleek, 5.2m-long car leads with an exaggerated, forward-leaning shark-nose, referencing the 1978 Alpina E24 B7. Power comes from a non-hybrid V8, and the 20-spoke wheels anchor it to Alpina’s spiritual home of Buchloe.

But the four-seat coupé isn't a production model and likely never will be. The first BMW-made Alpina to make it to market will be a 7-series super saloon, complete with a V8 at its heart. ‘We are not going to flood the market with Alpina products,’ assures van Hooydonk. ‘We’re going to take a careful approach, we’re going to have some patience and start one by one, and then build it slowly.’

With the BMW Group’s latest marque positioned to fill the rather large ‘white space’ between the most expensive BMW and fellow group marque Rolls-Royce, Alpina ‘was and is about quiet luxury’, van Hooydonk tells me on a terrace overlooking the sparkling water. The refined BMWs ‘[were] much faster than the standard product, but not ostentatious’, cars, in which ‘you could go almost undercover’. You can read more about the Vision BMW Alpina here.

BMWAlpina.com, @BMWAlpina.official

The world premieres

With the classics rooting most of the two events in the past, a handful of world premieres this year hinted at what the future holds for highly bespoke, limited-run supercars. Kimera Automobili launched its bonkers V8 Koenigsegg-powered K-39, an Italian hypercar that references both the 1981 Lancia Beta Montecarlo Turbo Group 5 racing car and the Lancia 037 Group B rally car, only this is no restomod. The K-39 is Kimera’s first car built from the ground up, which includes a carbon-fibre monocoque, a V8 engine, a manual gearbox and rear-wheel drive.

At Fuoriconcorso, tuning house Brabus unveiled the Bodo, a long, sweeping million-euro, grand tourer with 1,000hp twin-turbo V12 ‘hyper-GT’ named for late founder Bodo Buschmann. Beneath its all-carbon body lie the reworked bones of a twin-turbo V12 Aston Martin Vanquish, with styling seemingly referencing the Mercedes-Maybach Vision 6 concept car from 2016.

At the other end of the spectrum, Bizzarrini marked the centenary of founder Giotto Bizzarrini's birth with the Centenario Edition: a gloss-black, gold-wheeled special edition of its 5300 GT Corsa Revival. The car will be the last of the ‘reborn’ 5300 GTs, with the company confirming that it will soon launch an all-new model.

The winners

Of the two Como events, Fuoriconcorso is an unjudged, curated show with no official winner, whereas the Concorso d'Eleganza remains the true battleground, where the finest classic cars come to be judged. In 2026, more than 50 cars competed across classes curated by period and coachbuilder.

This year’s top honour was awarded to a 1937 BMW 328 ‘Bügelfalte’ – a one-off racing roadster built at the Munich plant, named for the distinctive metal edging on its front wings. Its owner, Stefano Martinoli of Italy, took home an A Lange & Söhne 1815 Chronograph in 18ct white gold, the crest of the Concorso hand-engraved on the case back.

When it came to the public vote, it was a 1963 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster that won the most hearts. Finished in white with a contrasting black hardtop, the roadster came complete with vintage luggage, skis and snow chains on its rear wheels.

ConcorsodEleganzaVilladEste.com, @ConcorsodEleganza_vde