Yahoo Autos What Makes a Car a 'Wedge'? A Pebble Beach Concours Judge Explains
One of the exciting things about the Pebble Beach Concours in the more recent years is a broadening of the classes and featured marques to include more modern cars as well as unusual prototypes and design studies. At the 2024 Concours, we were delighted to see a category devoted to "wedge-shaped concept cars and prototypes."
You're undoubtedly familiar with at least one of the cars in this category, or the production cars they inspired. We spoke with long-time (35 years!) Concours judge Richard Adatto about the class and some of the cars on display.
C/D: There have been wedge cars on display on the lawn before, right?
RA: Yes, there were wedge cars here and there, but this is the first time we've ever had a 68-year retrospective of wedge cars. No one's ever done that before. Pebble is pushing to stay the leading concours in the world, and they're really pushing themselves to change with the times and to do new things. This particular class was put together by three of us, Ken Gross, myself, and Martin Button. We start [the class] in 1955, and we go all the way up to 2023.
What was interesting to you guys about getting the wedge cars together?
The way the builders transitioned back and forth, influencing each other, pushing each other, like Ferrari. Ferrari has a fast supercar, but then the Aston Martin Bulldog comes out with a 200 mph speed.
Wedge is most associated with the '60s, or even '70s. How did you decide on the 1955 start date?
We found a car called the Gilda. It's a Ghia-bodied car. And that car has this kind of beautiful, tapered shape. So we just kind of landed upon that as a starting point, we're not saying that's the very first wedge, but it's a great one.
What makes a car a wedge?
A true wedge car starts with a very tapered front and a higher rear end. That kind of angular silhouette, transitioning from front to back is kind of the deal here. The other thing to remember is all these cars are hand built by artisans all over the world. I mean, they were doing this in America as well as in Italy. It's kind of amazing that everybody is on the same page. But it's global.
Where there any cars you had trouble tracking down?
I can't tell you which car this was, but we were asking for cars where many of them haven't been seen in a long time, and in one case, we called up the builder and they went, "Oh we'll have get back to you, we have to look for it." They knew it was still around but nobody knew exactly where it was because no-one had asked for that car in probably 25 years. It was in a warehouse somewhere in Italy and they found it in a matter of days, but it's funny that they didn't initially know where it was.
Ed. Note: It was the Honda HP-X. Reps from Honda told us their version of the story, which was that indeed when Adatto called, they had to do some scrambling to figure out if HP-X even still existed. Initially the folks in Japan said it was gone, but then a casual overheard office conversation led to someone remembering seeing it in a Pininfarina warehouse some 15 years ago, and after a few more international calls, they were able to track it down.
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