Tom Fritz Creates The 19Th Annual Amelia Island Concours D'elegance Poster

December 10, 2013 by Amelia Island Concours

The posters for the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance have become collectible car art and the 2014 edition is no exception. Today the Concours revealed that the 19thannual event poster was created by famed hot rod artist Tom Fritz and honors Jochen Mass on the 25th anniversary of his victory in the 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans driving his Mercedes-Benz Sauber C9. The beautiful piece takes creative cues from the first Amelia poster in 1996, well-known for honoring the record-setting drive of Sir Stirling Moss in the 1955 Mille Miglia 1000 mile road race in his Mercedes-Benz 300SLR.

Fritz created the essence of Grand Prix and Le Mans winner Jochen Mass and three legendary cars that headlined his racing career: the 1977 Porsche 935 Turbo that won the 1977 World Championship of Makes, the McLaren M23 Formula 1 racer that took Jochen to victory in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix, and his 1989 Le Mans-winning C9 Sauber Mercedes-Benz, the fastest of all Mercedes-Benz's iconic 'silver arrows'. Tom Fritz paints out of his studio in Ventura County, California.

'Tom's art is in the Smithsonian's Postal Museum, several corporate headquarters in Detroit, the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona and at Harley-Davidson headquarters in Milwaukee,' said Bill Warner, Founder and Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. 'For any artist it's supremely difficult to capture the character and spirit of the man and the soul of the machine in the same work. It shows Tom's respect for the man and his accomplishments plus a genuine enthusiasm for fast cars at high speed. Tom's done justice to Jochen and his racers.'