Out at the Four Seasons Resort And Club Dallas at Las Colinas, a whopping 2,500 people gathered on Saturday, September 9, to enjoy some of the world’s most exotic, luxury, and high-performance vehicles. The inaugural Park Place Luxury And Supercar Showcase, a sort of mini-Concours d’Elegance, was held in part to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ken Schnitzer‘s Park Place Dealerships. But it also was intended to benefit the Momentous Institute, owned and operated by the Salesmanship Club of Dallas since 1920.
Surrounded by car lovers checking out nearly 200 autos—from new Bentleys, Bugattis, and Rolls-Royces sold by Park Place to vintage cars, like Robert Ostrowski‘s 1948 Plymouth Convertible and a ’65 Shelby 427 Cobra—Schnitzer recalled the event’s origins. “We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary, so we thought, what can we do that would be special and memorable?” he said. “So we came up with this sort of mini-Concours event, which has never been done in Dallas before. We completely sold out of tickets, and we even had to turn people away. We want to make it an annual event.”
In addition to the cars, there were fashions from NorthPark Center on display, as well as specialty boutiques with offerings by the likes of Bachendorf’s, Mulberry, Montblanc, and Niven Morgan.
At one point Niven greeted Lee Bailey, one of the guests and a major aficionado of high-end cars (she currently owns a Rolls convertible, plus two Aston-Martins). Niven told Lee that he drives a Range Rover himself and is “doing all the candles” for the opening of Schnitzer’s new North Texas Land Rover dealership.
Also lending a hand was Brad Oldham, who partnered with wife Christy Coltrin to create the “Spirit of Park Place,” an original sculpture that was presented to three big winners of the day’s car show. “Bachendorf Crystal” awards were also given to winners in the Vintage, Classic, Contemporary, and Exotic/Supercar categories. Before the trophies were given out, though, Ken presented the Momentous Institute with a giant check representing a $30,000 contribution from Park Place.
Later, just before a private dinner at the Four Season’s LAW Restaurant hosted by Rolls-Royce, the company’s communications head, Gerry Spahn, gave Lee and a few others an up-close look at the 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom, which had just arrived straight from Pebble Beach for its Texas debut. Park Place’s Heath Strayhan said the Dallas-based dealership expected to sell four or five of the top-of-the-line Phantoms in 2018, “give or take two or three.”