This is how we get new people into the car world
and where the best, best cars are actually displayed in public.
They're not hidden in museums
or hidden in people's collections.
And that's why crowds come out in the thousands
to see them.
Cars have had this draw
beyond just their transportation value from the very beginning.
I always say, the first car was an amazing invention.
And when the second car was built,
they went out and did a race against each other.
For years, Hagerty has made its name,
providing insurance policies,
data and service
for people who own classic and collectible cars.
But lately, people in the car world
are seeing a very new side of the family-run company.
In fact, CEO McKeel Hagerty
has worked hard
to acquire a lot of local car shows,
car races, storage spots, tech providers
and automotive events around the country
to add to the Hagerty name.
The prestigious Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance
held annually in sunny Amelia Island, Florida, is one of them.
It's a long tradition in the automotive world
where the best vintage cars come together
with some of the coolest new cars
for people to see, experience, smell.
Probably not touch,
but it's a competition.
The Amelia event has 32 classes of cars,
ranging from the earliest cars that were ever built.
All the way up to modern supercars
and kind of every bit in between.
There's a best in class
and then some runners-up
and they'll receive awards.
The car behind me is a 1953
Balbo bodied, Siata 208 CS 8V powered coupe.
It's one of 11.
It has been in the same family now for 64 years.
This car is the fifth Speedster ever produced.
It was a 1954 Porsche 356.
The other four that came before this
are actually in the Porsche Museum right now.
If you look at the car, the casting came out very poorly.
That script actually looks like it says Spoodster.
So it was quickly discontinued.
The running joke at the shop has been
we're working on the fifth Spoodster ever made.
I grew up in a car family.
My dad was an amateur restorer
and so spending time with my dad
meant spending time in the garage.
I just fell in love, not just with cars,
but with the people around the car world.
And while the cars are the stars here,
it's the people that make me come back.
They're car people.
I have an original split window bus,
a 1962.
This is the Woodstock bus.
We got some other famous buses
that came out from California.
And I've been involved in converting some of these original buses to electric.
Going back to the beginning, they were cheap.
They were readily available.
And if you wanted some freedom,
you had to have a bus.
We've been sponsors of this and many events around the world
for years and it was an important part
of how we marketed the company
and got our name out there.
And we always liked being able to activate at these events
in a way that somehow made the event better.
This is a Ford GT40 MkII.
I bought this car in 1969.
It had been slightly damaged by Peter Revson
when he went upside down at 185 miles an hour,
and then the car was subsequently burned
three times and then I rebuilt it.
This is a 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis.
It was requisitioned by the British for the war.
It will travel 50 miles an hour.
You drive this car, you see the countryside.
Hagerty bought the event in 2021
as a way to get even more involved in car culture.
And on a recent weekend
more than 25,000 people attended the show,
which included every sort of car anyone could ever want.
When we started just with insurance all those years ago
our job was just to make that process of insurance better for car enthusiasts.
And when some of these companies
started coming to us to ask us to acquire their events,
we were very careful about it because we wanted to avoid things
where we'd have conflicts of interest
and just say look, can we bring our secret sauce
and then just steward them forward
long into the future?
When I've been thinking about how to grow this business,
we knew we'd probably do more than just insurance.
And that's why membership was really important to us.
Our media business was important.
And to me it all works together very nicely.
But it's all meant to serve the car enthusiast.