2021 Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s Survives a Storm
Bookends for Chairman Larry Moss
By Steve Purdy
Shunpiker Productions
Larry Moss deserves a medal of valor for keeping a cool head in the face of adversity saving this important Concours d’Elegance - perhaps the third most prestigious show of its kind in the country - from natural disaster . . . twice.
A serious collector himself, Moss has been in a leadership role with the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, that became the Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s, for more than thirty years.
His first year as event chairman,1999, saw a tornado roll through the fully prepared field along the 17th and 18th fairways of the golf course in the shadow of the Meadow Brook mansion. Tents were blown down, signage blown away and torrential rains flooded the fairways. The show was scheduled to open to the public at 10AM the next morning. Larry and his team managed to get the cars onto the course along the service paths rather than the fairways, the tents mostly reset and the pass-in-review path filled with plywood and straw so MC Ed Lucas could introduce the winning cars. It seemed like a remarkable feat of management to this observer.