1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola takes Best in Show at Amelia Island

1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola. Photos by Richard Lentinello, unless otherwise indicated.

Best known for producing trucks and buses, Spanish automaker Pegaso also built high-end sports cars from 1951-’58. The exact quantity produced (as few as 84 and as many as 125) remains a mystery, but only two “Cupola” models, with a distinctive and oversize rear window, side exhausts and partially skirted fenders, were ever built. Of these, chassis 0102 150 0121, a car first shown at the 1953 New York Motor Show, is the sole survivor, and, on Sunday, the stunning yellow coupe, now owned by the Louwman Museum, took Best of Show Concours de Sport at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.

The car’s radical styling wasn’t penned by a single designer; instead, Spanish students were asked to sketch what cars would look like in the future, and the resulting design cues were brought to life by in-house coachbuilder Enasa. For display in New York, chassis 0102 150 0121 was painted in the same livery seen at Amelia Island, down to the red tires.

Power for the Cupola came from a normally aspirated, double-overhead camshaft, 2.5-liter 90-degree V-8, rated at 165 horsepower and 136 pound-feet of torque. It was shifted through a five-speed manual transmission. The car’s compact size and relatively light weight (below 2,900 pounds) would have delivered engaging performance, and the car did compete in the 1954 La Carrera Panamerican race while owned by Dominican President Rafael Trujillo.

Photo by Malcolm Hogan, courtesy Automotive Addicts.

The car was still in Trujillo’s possession at the time of his May 1961 assassination, and its whereabouts for the next two decades are something of a mystery (though it was reportedly seized by the government following Trujillo’s death). By the mid-1980s, the car, now painted silver, was part of Peter Kaus’s Rosso Bianco collection, and in 2006 it was acquired by Evert Louwman and the Louwman Museum in The Hague, Netherlands. In 2015, the car emerged from a six-year restoration, and made its public debut at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, where it was awarded the BMW Group Trophy.

Photo by Malcolm Hogan, courtesy Automotive Addicts.

The Best of Show Concours d’Elegance award went to a Brewster-bodied 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Sedanca de Ville owned by the Nethercutt Collection in California. Fittingly, the regal car boasted ties to Hollywood, as it was reportedly once owned by silver-screen star Constance Bennett and appeared (briefly) in The King and the Chorus Girl.

Look for more Hemmings Daily coverage of Amelia Island, including a gallery of photos from the event, in the coming days. For a complete list of category winners, visit AmeliaConcours.org.