I posted a video dissecting the score sheets the owner received for Concours Judging over the last three attempts. I was involved with the car on this past attempt to Cavallino and missed the mark by 1-1/2 points! I accepted the score and thought I knew exactly where we may have been deducted, but when I received the score sheets I found some discrepancies.

The first year, the owner took this green 330GTC to Cavallino, he received a 90.5 total score with deductions on a number valid points. He took the car home and showed this score sheet to his mechanics and fixed some of the things that the score sheet found wrong.

He returned the following year in 2023 with these improvements and scored a disappointing 84 points! The disgusted owner reached out to me in 2024 for help and advice getting his car to Cavallino and I agreed to look at the car. I inspected the car and found it to be very nice, but with some major issues and many little issues that might have been holding this car back from Platinum. I have seen this problem with many owners when trying to win a Platinum in the Ferrari world by using score sheet incorrectly as a road map to Platinum. It can be a useful tool, but certainly not a sure-fire guide. I explained the job of a judge during the 15 minutes of judging is to find deductions that would cause the car not to make the 97 points or higher it takes to make a Platinum car. When deductions amount to 10 or 20 points, the judges usually stop counting, so their score does not necessarily reflect all the incorrect things of a particular car. When I shot a video of my first inspection of this car, I must have found at least an additional 20 points the previous judges missed simply because I had more time to look!

My advice was to study the score sheet, look at the deductions, correct the faults and in addition, correct all the other things I saw as potential deductions that another judge would find. The only way to do it was to make this car as perfect as possible, but within reason. The biggest issue I had with this car was the door fit. A previous shop had painted this car, but failed to make the driver’s side door fit flush with the body work. I know that historically, 330GTCs may have had slightly imperfect door fit, but many of these issues may have been corrected, and yet this car had a door that wasn’t quite right. The previous two score sheets made note of this issue, and deducted between 1/2 point of 1 point for this problem. To fix this issue completely would require possibly repainting the car so the door could be disassembled, reworked, and painted to match. I don’t think there is anything we do has an unlimited budget, and I am always working with my clients to get the most for their money. Looking at the previous deductions, I felt repainting the car for 10s of thousands of dollars was not worth the 1/2 or full point deduction for this issue, instead I chose to focus on all the other faults, allowing room for a future deduction of a point for this door fit.

Judgement day came and I was proud of the work and had you follow along through the process on my Youtube channel. We had come a long way and felt the car had a good chance of placing, but was sadly disappointed with not making the mark again. I felt worse than the owner and wondered if I had made the right decision to not getting the door fixed but would only know once we received the score sheet.

When the score sheet arrived several weeks later, I was shocked to find not only was a 1/2 point was a deducted for a brand new interior, but also 2-1/2 points was taken for the door fit, over twice what was taken off before! We brought these points up to both the class judge and the chief class judge with thin responses. There was no real response as to why 1/2 a point was deducted for a newly installed interior. On the 1/2 point, 1 point, and 2-1/2 point deduction for the same issue, I was told perhaps the first two scores were too lenient. If that were the case, who is checking on the severity of deductions? Consistency is important when a couple half points can make or break an award. I was not asking for a re-scoring of our car and was going to honor the result, but wanted to point out the discrepancies in the scoring. I based my corrections on this green GTC based on the previous deductions for the same issue, but if I had known higher points could be deducted, I would have advised my client differently.

Consistency is paramount to making judging cars fair. As a restorer, I work very hard are getting the details right, and I would expect the judges to take their jobs as seriously as I do. I understand their job is an unpaid position with perks sometimes only being a free meal, but when you consider the expense and effort it takes to bring these cars to a show that depends on entrants, good judging practice is a big part of its survival.

I can see the change in the direction of car shows. It’s understandable that the young generation often rejects the habits of their fathers. We’ve seen the popularity of Car and Coffee events all over the world where owners can casually attend a car show, share in the enthusiasm, and leave whenever they please. They’re not required to stay until the show’s end, and sit in lawn chairs next to their cars waiting to leave. The Ferrari car shows are turning into “Lifestyle Events” like Quail, Moto, and Casa Ferrari events at Pebble Beach. These participants care less about awards, and more about being invited and seen. No one leaves angry, or snubbed if they have a ticket, but if we want to validate Ferraris with Platinums, we need to consider if these younger people will really care. Their “new” Ferraris which will be eligible soon will have delivery miles and still the original wrapper. It’s not going to be hard to judge them if they simply bring their window sticker and options sheet to the show!