Jay Leno gets up-close look at one-of-a-kind cars at Audrain Concours' The Gathering

NEWPORT — Audrain Concours + Motor Week has arrived, bringing car enthusiasts from all over the country, local motorheads and even a celebrity or two to the City-by-the-Sea for one of the marquee events on every automobile aficionado’s calendar.

Friday morning, the car crowd flocked to the grounds of Rough Point, the estate of Doris Duke, for The Gathering, a popular and highly attended car show and networking event that seems to be a highlight of the week for many of the visitors.

Some of them perhaps even have spotted classic cars along the way down the coast, with Cadillacs making a base camp in the Bristol Sip N’ Dip parking lot before the trip to Newport and a number of vintage Mercedes cruising down Ocean Drive on their way to the show.

Noted car collector Jay Leno was in attendance, of course, taking the mic for a conversation with Jeff Taylor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, about his one-of-a-kind 1991 Land Rover Defender 90, which garnered attention even among a field full of Ferraris, Cadillacs and Porsches.

That's because of the vehicle's custom wooden body panels made of ash and sapele (an African hardwood somewhat similar to mahogany) and its 32-battery powered electric drive train.

Check out what's on tap:World's finest cars will be on display at 2022 Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week

Leno, the now-retired late night television host known not only for collecting cars but also for being genuinely knowledgeable about them, was clearly intrigued by Taylor's Land Rover, which incidentally is for sale for $450,000.

An audience gathered to hear Leno pick Taylor’s brain and examine the vehicle.

'That car was a giant killer'

There were also some locals in attendance — two gentlemen with VIP tags hanging around their necks turned out to be Bryan Bardy and Ron O’Hanley, both local sailors and Newport residents who have made a tradition of attending the annual motor week with their friends and family.

Bardy said he has a 1980 CJ7 Jeep, which isn’t suitable for this particular show but a vehicle he does bring to Newport’s Cars and Coffee events, which takes place every week from early spring until October at various locations.

More:Newport police close case of 1966 Doris Duke crash that killed Eduardo Tirella — again

Bardy and O’Hanley posed for a picture in front of their friend Chris Cannon’s bright yellow 1987 Porsche Carrera, which Cannon later explained he had heavily modified over the course of a build-out. It took about two years and resulted in a vehicle with about 100 more horsepower and 300 less pounds of body weight than a typical Carrera.

“It was a great COVID project,” Cannon, a Jamestown resident, said about the rebuild. “I don’t race it, but I do drive it on a track.”

There was another Porsche on display at the entrance, a sleek red 1964 Carrera GTS that was Porsche’s first fiberglass racecar.

“That car was a giant-killer,” O’Hanley explained. “It has a smaller engine than a lot of other cars, but it was so light that it won a lot of races. It still wins vintage races. That car (at the entrance) is probably worth $5 million.”

More:This historic Newport house served as a bed and breakfast. It just sold for $5.5 million.

A stylish, retro-futuristic 'art deco car'

Another vehicle garnering a lot of attention was a pale blue Delahaye, a stylish, retro-futuristic looking car Ardy Arani, who described himself as “a certified car guy,” explained was an “art deco car.”  

Arani said he flew in from Atlanta for the show, and had seen similar Delahaye vehicles at a museum in Georgia.

Delahaye was a French company founded in the 1890s, but its racing department was established in 1932, just as the art deco era of automotive design really rose to prominence.

The cars, many of them French, featured massive engines, swooping fenders, big round headlights and lots of chrome, aesthetics that eventually influenced the design of more affordable American cars like the now-famous Chrysler Airflow.