The Cortile, Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix's Italian Macchina Show If you think that's a mouthful to read you should see it in person! How did the Cortile start?
The Cortile is the Italian Car Show, at The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix which will again meet on July 14-15, 2018. In Italian "Cortile" translates into courtyard which is an appropriate name for our display of fine Italian machina on the 18th fairway of the Bob O'Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park. As you may know, The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is the only Vintage Race held on city streets
in North America and includes some white knuckle off-camber turns brushing stone walls in s-bends downhill. The Cortile
The Cortile is a hybrid car show. Hybrid in the sense that it is one of the few car shows on race weekend managed by directly by the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix Association. Many of the other shows are graciously managed by local car clubs. In October of 2007 Dan Delbianco and Bob Speer had lunch with Bernie Martin and the subject of Italian cars, and the lack of them at the PVGP, came up. The Italian manufacturer's and coachbuilders had some of the richest history of automotive design and performance engineering. There seemed to be two key problems:
- There where no Italian Car dealers in the Western PA region
- There where no active Italian Car clubs to manage a car show
By the end of that lunch it was decided to roll the dice and see if we could attract some Italian gems to Pittsburgh for the Grand Prix by creating an "All Italian" Marque of the Year. As Bernie tells it, Bob and Dan looked at him and said "Great Idea! You're in charge"
So, in 2008, at the 26th running of The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, "All Italian Cars" were featured as the "Marque of the Year" There was an overwhelming response! But there was still no local car club and no local dealers to manage an all Italian car show. During the course of the show there where many discussions about why more Italian car owners didn't participate. Some of the main reasons given was that the location of the Italian car event turned into a swamp if it rained as well as many visitors to the PVGP, not realizing the rarity of some of the cars in front of them wanted to "hop in" because there where only a few Italian cars that showed up. By the end of the 2008 event the discussion was flowing. Several people made the journey across the park to look at a section of the golf course that was completely vacant near the #8 & #17 green of the Bob O'Conner Golf Course at Schenley Park. It was decided to create an All Italian event every year. In 2009 the PVGP introduced "The Cortile": a very unique, opulent area befitting the gorgeous Italian gems that participate. The Cortile is a PVGP run event and not a club event which makes it rather unique from many of the other car shows that occur over the Grand Prix weekend.
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