Published June 1, 2026
BY THEODORA MILLER
For the 18th year in a row, Concours d’Lemons, a Seaside event that acts as a sort of anti-car week by showing off variously deformed and damaged cars all competing for Worst in Show, will be offering a free and fun car display on Aug. 15.
Winners of “Worst in Show” will receive recycled, thrift show trophies. courtesy of ALAN GALBRAITH
Concours d’Lemons was founded by Alan Galbraith, a Sacramento resident with a background in marketing and raised in a motor-enthusiast family, who, after attending the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and celebrating the best cars in the business for decades, chose to start an event for the worst cars in the same vicinity.
Cars are graded based on fallibilities including criteria such as arrests on the road and age–top scores for cars constructed pre-1950s.
The counterculture car show has various eclectic classification categories including Kommunist Kars, which refers to older cars from former Soviet Bloc; the winner might garner the title of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Medal for Most Glorious Achievement in Transportative Advancement for Use Upon Billiard-Smooth Highways as Are Uniformly to Be Found Inside Workers’ Paradise. Other categories include the Needlessly Complex Italian, Rust Belt American Junk, Swedish Meatballs or “Der Self-Satisfiedkrauttenwagen.”
All sorts of vintage or international cars compete annually in the Concours d’Lemons. courtesy of ALAN GALBRAITH
There are also specialty awards, including This Car Should Have Been a Lawsuit (sponsored by Conn Law PC), Slightly Better Than a Go-Kart and Driving For a Prayer, among others.
The event is a stationary show, as many of the automobiles entered do not have reliable brakes, and as Galbraith boasts, bribes for judges are openly offered and accepted. Past winners include a street-safe spaceship as well as a biscuter, a microcar so small it is not allowed on roads.
The car display has acted as a sort of focal point for the automotive community, including enthusiasts who are delighted to have an event free of charge in their own backyard. The event has active sponsors such as Rio’s Garage and an automotive malfunction litigator.
Concours d’Lemons has drawn over 100 entries of awfully designed automobiles in recent years. courtesy of ALAN GALBRAITH
“Pebble Beach has Dusenbergs, Della Hayes and Ferraris,” says Galbraith. “We have Pintos, Pacers and Gremlins.”
At the beginning, Galbraith was worried nobody would show up, yet the event has grown every year and has recently garnered as many as 5,000 spectators from both around the area and out of town.
The event is lucky enough to have a variety of car world celebrities to judge, including, one year, Wayne Carini, a well known automotive television celebrity and car restorer.
For the worst of the worst, the rustbuckets and hoopties, Concours d’Lemons–this year to be celebrated Aug. 15 from 9 to 1:30 at Seaside City Hall–acts as a community event for the locals and lemon enthusiasts.
