The concours d’elegance (French for “competition of elegance”) began as a rolling aristocratic fashion show. Long before cars existed, 17th-century Parisian blue-bloods paraded their ornate horse-drawn carriages in the city’s manicured parks. As the age of horsepower gave way to horsepower of a mechanical sort, the contests transformed into competitions between owners of extremely expensive automobiles. It was less about speed and more about style: finely crafted coaches—and later cars—were paraded alongside impeccably dressed ladies and gentlemen, with judges taking stock of every shimmering detail.