FuoriConcorso

The gardens of Villa del Grumello sit a few steps from the lake, close enough to Como's centre that you could walk there from the train station. Every May, for two days, they become the setting for one of the most considered automotive gatherings in Europe — not a concours in the traditional sense, but a curated argument about what cars mean and why they matter.

The 2026 edition is titled KraftMeister, a deliberate provocation: German engineering, in its most focused and uncompromising form, displayed on the shores of an Italian lake. Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, the four marques that between the 1970s and 1990s redefined what a performance car could be. The visual identity leans into it: industrial orange, a retro-futuristic font, sharp Bauhaus edges. Founded by Guglielmo Miani in 2019, FuoriConcorso has won Route Classiche's Event of the Year and counts Classic Driver as headline media partner since the beginning.

The format runs across three locations. Villa del Grumello and Villa Sucota host the main exhibition; Villa Olmo, a short walk along the lakefront promenade, houses the Open Museum — a different world-class collection each year in an open-air setting. A Conversation Program runs across both days, bringing collectors, designers and racing figures into the same room. Tickets are priced for the serious enthusiast: a standard two-day pass, and a Super VIP tier that includes reserved seating, lounge access and a private dinner on the Terrazza Olmo at sunset.

The weekend overlaps deliberately with the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este ten kilometres down the lake in Cernobbio. The two events have different personalities. Villa d'Este is formal, jury-led, BMW-owned; FuoriConcorso is independent, thematic, slightly looser. Both are worth your time. From Switzerland the A2 through the Gotthard and down to Como takes under two hours from Zürich. The lakefront path between Villa Olmo and Villa Grumello is flat and walkable. Leave the car somewhere sensible and use your feet.