The Bridge IX Auto Show: An Invitation-Only Feast For Gearheads, Car Collectors & the People Who Love Them

Those lucky enough to snag an invitation to The Bridge IX Auto Show in Bridgehampton last Saturday couldn’t walk more than a few feet in any direction without running into some of the world’s most powerful, opulent and head-turning vehicles – and that was just in the visitor’s parking lot.

Case in point: I got a little uneasy as the traffic-control guys shoehorned me in perilously close to an immaculate 1998 Porsche 911 Turbo S and directly behind a brand new $600,000 Lamborghini Revuelto gas/electric hybrid.

There was such an intimidating level of automotive design and engineering on display before we even got to the show that I made sure to stroke the dashboard of my Acura a couple of times to let it know I still loved it.

It was as perfect a late-summer day as the automotive gods could conjure. The Peconic Bay shimmered on the horizon and 300 serious vehicles – many of which looked like they were going 120 miles per hour while standing still – were lovingly arrayed around a golf course with plenty of racing lore in its DNA.

As it has for the better part of a decade, the event took place at the former home of the Bridgehampton Road Races Circuit, a storied racetrack that was designed and built by Grumman engineers in 1957, primarily to circumvent a ban on public road racing. In its heyday, the Circuit track had seen the likes of Mario Andretti, Bruce McLaren and Richard Petty careening around its challenging, serpentine turns.

The track burned brightly through the 1960s. But by the early 1970s, although it was still accessible to amateur drivers, it had hosted its last professional race.

Robert Rubin, a car collector and East End summer local, began investing in the site in the early 1980s. By 1992, Rubin had acquired the entirety of the former track, ultimately transforming the Circuit into the golf club known today as The Bridge.

Rubin is something of a Renaissance man. After a quarter-century as a commodities trader, he enrolled in the Theory and History of Architecture Ph.D program at Columbia. He has published books and articles on Richard Prince, Alexander Calder, Alan Ginsberg, and Richard Avedon, preserved important architecture by Pierre Chareau, Buckminster Fuller and Jean Prouvé, and curated multi-disciplinary exhibitions at major museums in New York, Los Angeles and Paris.

Rubin’s partners are Jeffery Einhorn, a Manhattan attorney and the curator of the vehicles at the show, and Shamin Abas, the founder and president of the upscale communications and marketing firm that bears her name. Since 2016, The Bridge Show has been co-produced by various corporate sponsors. This year’s event was presented by Maybach, the ultra-luxury brand owned and operated by Mercedes-Benz.

As the Roman numerals in its name imply, the Show has only been around for nine years. But what it lacks in longevity it makes up for in exclusivity. The invitation-only event has become arguably the hottest ticket on the post-Labor Day East End calendar.

In his production notes, Rubin described the vehicles in the 2025 show as “a range of rare and seldom-seen automobiles, spanning vintage sports cars to hypercars and everything in between.”

“In addition to the Ferraris, Astons, Lamborghinis, and other blue-chip icons showcased annually, we [were delighted to also present] a collection of rarely seen manual-transmission vehicles, striking color-matched Porsches and Ferraris, and an exceptional selection of vintage Mercedes-Benz models,” he added.

Some personal highlights:

As an American gearhead of a certain age, I tend to be drawn to muscle cars from the 1960s and ’70s. And is there a more quintessential piece of Detroit muscle than the 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air III? Capable of generating 366 horsepower and an endless amount of attitude, the “GOAT” on display at The Bridge was resplendent in factory orange and a somewhat rare parchment colored interior. The GTO was also certified by Pontiac to be 100% period-correct, right down to the 8-track player in the dash.

Another perfectly preserved and period-correct head-turning muscle car was a jet-black 1970 Chevrolet Nova Super Sport with a deluxe interior, also black. Generating 375 horsepower from its classic 396 cubic-inch V8 Chevy big block engine, the Nova was a badass growler in its day and still radiated a certain kind of danger 55 years later.

The Nova SS and GTO Judge were undeniably fast cars in their prime. But they weren’t fast like the 2013 Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. When it debuted, the Veyron was officially recognized as the fastest production car in the world with a verified top speed of 267.8 mph.

Only 30 of the vehicles were produced worldwide, so the Bugatti on display at The Bridge was particularly exotic – and ferocious.

Before Land Rover morphed into a full-on luxury brand, it used to be known as a true go-anywhere off-road vehicle. The Alpine White 1993 Land Rover Nas Defender 110 at The Bridge harkened back to those tough-guy days. Only 500 of the ‘93 Defender 110s were produced for sale in the United States.

Modifications for the U.S. market included a full external roll cage, side-facing rear jump seats and reinforced bumpers.

One of my favorite cars at The Bridge flew a bit under the radar. At first glance, the long, lean, comparatively pedestrian body style of the 1965 Dodge Coronet A990 in Medium Tan Metallic seemed out of place amid the in-your-face American muscle cars around it. But a deeper dive with David Silverstein, the vehicle’s owner, revealed its place in the pantheon of American drag racing.

“The A990 wasn’t just a car – it was a purpose-built factory drag racer, conceived in secrecy and bred for speed,” Silverstein wrote in his notes for the Show. “It was based on the Dodge Coronet body but heavily re-engineered to do one thing: go fast in a straight line.”

The A990 featured an early incarnation of the legendary HEMI V8 engine that had debuted only a year earlier. Silverstein pointed out that Dodge produced only 101 units of the A990 package, and only three in Medium Tan Metallic, which made his Coronet a very rare beast indeed.