Concours lawns around the Cape, and how to enjoy one

The whole point of a classic display is that it rewards standing still. Thirty or forty cars on a lawn, parked in rows with their bonnets up, and a crowd that moves at the speed of a conversation. You will cover the entire field in forty minutes if you hurry, which is why nobody hurries. We usually arrive at half past eight, walk once around quickly to see what is there, then go back to the six cars that interested us and stay at each for ten minutes.

Bring a hat and bring cash. The Winelands venues are hot by eleven and the shade is wherever the oaks happen to be, and the catering at a club event is often a trestle table where a card machine depends on a signal that comes and goes.

The Winelands carry most of them: estate lawns around Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, a few in Paarl, and the occasional display on a school field in the southern suburbs. There are also breakfast runs that end in a car park somewhere along the False Bay coast, which are not concours at all but are a pleasant way to see twenty interesting cars before nine in the morning.

Getting there is part of it. From the city bowl you are looking at forty-five to sixty-five kilometres to most of the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek venues, and the R44 and the R310 are far more interesting than the N1. If the display is over Franschhoek Pass, allow extra time: the pass itself is short, but the road through the village fills up by nine and a slow caravan in front of you on the climb will cost you fifteen minutes.

Not shine. Judging sheets at a serious concours reward originality and correctness far above polish, which surprises people. Points go for correct paint finish rather than a deeper one, for the right fasteners, for the right tyre pattern on the right rim, for an engine bay that looks as it left the line rather than one that has been detailed to a mirror. A car with a repaint two shades off will lose to a slightly faded original.

Condition still counts, obviously, and so does completeness, which is where a lot of restorations fall down: the correct jack, the right tool roll, the handbook in the glovebox. If you want to learn how it works, stand near a judging team for twenty minutes and listen. They are usually happy to explain a deduction once the car has been scored.

Ask before you touch anything, including the door handle, and keep your belt buckle away from the paint when you lean in. That sounds obvious and is broken constantly. If you have a bag or a camera on a strap, hold it in front of you rather than letting it swing at door-height.

The conversation that always works is a question about the search rather than the car. What did it take to find a correct rear light lens, where does the owner get machining done, what does a set of tyres in an unfashionable size cost now. You will get twenty minutes of genuinely useful information, some of which is about workshops in Cape Town that do not advertise and are worth knowing about if you ever buy something older.

If you own something worth displaying, the practical considerations are mostly about transport and insurance. A car that is not licensed for the road has to be trailered, and towing a sixteen-hundred-kilogram car on a double-axle trailer over Sir Lowry's in a south-easter is a genuine piece of driving that wants a tow vehicle with a proper hitch rating and working trailer brakes. Budget four to six hundred rand in diesel for a Franschhoek round trip with a trailer, and more if you are coming from Malmesbury.

Also check your policy wording. Classic cover often limits annual kilometres and sometimes excludes the car while it is being judged with the bonnet up in a public space, which sounds absurd until a claim is declined. Entry fees for a club display usually sit between a hundred and fifty and four hundred rand, and the trophy, if you get one, will not cover the cost of the morning. People do it for the lawn and the conversation, which is the correct reason.