TUTTO BENE HILLCLIMB 2026

There are concours events, historic races, rallies and cars-and-coffee meetings and then there is Tutto Bene.
Still a young event, the Tutto Bene Hillclimb has already developed a character of its own. High above Lake Maggiore, classics share the road with restomods, rally and race cars, prototypes and contemporary supercars. There is no stopwatch and no classification. Instead, the emphasis is on something increasingly rare at automotive gatherings: seeing and hearing interesting cars in motion.

Classic Trader’s Michael Gross attended the 2026 edition and came back with a simple conclusion: some events display cars. Tutto Bene celebrates them.

Slow down to go fast

The motto sounds contradictory. At Tutto Bene, it makes perfect sense.

“Slow down to go fast” is less about driving technique than about attitude. Take the time to look at the cars, understand where they come from, meet the people behind them – and then drive them as they were intended to be driven.

The 2026 Tutto Bene Hillclimb took place on 9 September and marked the third edition of the event created by Milan-based design studio BorromeoDeSilva and Los Angeles automotive collective Race Service.

Around 85 selected cars formed an unusually broad field. Historic machinery stood alongside contemporary cars, restomods and competition vehicles. There were Italian cars, of course, but also machinery from Germany, Britain and the United States.

It sounds like a recipe for a rather confused car park. In reality, that lack of conventional categories is part of the concept.

The common denominator is not age, country of origin or market value. The cars have to be interesting.

From Lake Maggiore to Mottarone

The location does much of the rest.

Stresa sits on the western shore of Lake Maggiore, facing the Borromean Islands. Behind it rises Mottarone, the mountain separating Lake Maggiore from Lake Orta.

For Tutto Bene, the private Strada Borromea becomes the central stage. Starting near Gignese, the route climbs for around nine kilometres through forest and hairpins, gaining almost 800 metres before reaching Mottarone at close to 1,500 metres above sea level.

The contrast between the two days is deliberate.

The first is distinctly Italian in pace: Stresa, Villa Pallavicino, boats across Lake Maggiore, aperitivo and dinner on the private Isola Madre.

Then the mountain takes over.

On the second day, participants are given the opportunity to make repeated runs up Mottarone. Without a stopwatch, there is little incentive to chase the final tenth of a second. That changes both the atmosphere and the way the cars are experienced.

No qualifying. No podium. No outright winner.

Just a very good road and a collection of cars that were never designed to spend their entire lives standing still.

No velvet ropes

For Michael Gross, the absence of the usual barriers between cars and spectators was one of the defining characteristics of Tutto Bene.

“No velvet ropes. No concours whispering. No standing three metres away wondering whether you’re allowed to touch anything.”

Instead, engines are started, cars warm up and tyres reach operating temperature. Owners, designers, builders and drivers talk about the machines in front of them rather than simply displaying them.

That distinction matters.

The collector-car world has changed considerably over the past decade. A younger generation of enthusiasts does not necessarily separate an original historic car, a carefully executed restomod and a modern limited-production model into different cultural compartments. Increasingly, they can be found in the same collection, at the same event and, as Tutto Bene demonstrates, on the same mountain road.

The approach is less concerned with drawing lines between categories and more interested in what makes a car worth talking about – and worth driving.

A garage without walls

The entry list could easily have belonged to several different events.

Rally cars met circuit machinery. Restomods ran alongside preserved classics. Supercars and prototypes shared the mountain with cars whose competition careers began decades ago.

Maserati, for example, connected its current performance programme with its own competition history, bringing the famous Eldorado single-seater together with contemporary machinery inspired by the historic racing car. Bertone brought its new Runabout to an environment for which such a car makes considerable sense: not under exhibition lighting, but on a mountain road.

BMW M also brought contemporary performance machinery to Mottarone.

At a traditional concours these cars might never occupy the same class. At a historic race meeting, some would not be eligible at all. Tutto Bene removes those boundaries.

The result is less a museum and more a garage without walls.

The people matter as much as the cars

The machinery, however, only tells half the story.

Collectors, racers, designers, restorers, builders and enthusiasts come from different corners of the automotive world, yet spend two days talking about remarkably similar things: engineering decisions, restoration details, driving experiences and, inevitably, gear ratios over dinner.

For Michael, this was one of the strongest impressions of the event.

Tutto Bene does not place the car on one side and the visitor on the other. The usual distance between object and observer largely disappears. Cars arrive, engines are started, bonnets are opened and conversations begin.

And because the field is so varied, those conversations cross generations as easily as the cars themselves.

Someone interested in a competition car from decades ago may find themselves examining the details of a contemporary restomod half an hour later. A modern prototype can attract the same crowd as a historic rally car. Different generations of automotive culture coexist without needing to decide which one matters more.

Perhaps this is where Tutto Bene feels particularly contemporary.

It acknowledges the history of the automobile without treating that history as something finished.

Cars are supposed to move

There is another, simpler lesson from Mottarone.

Collector cars can be pieces of industrial design and documents of engineering history. Some have become valuable objects in their own right. But they were built with steering wheels, gearboxes and engines for a reason.

Tutto Bene puts that idea back at the centre of the event.

There are no concours points to lose and no stopwatch demanding unnecessary risks. Instead, the cars are given a road, a mountain and an audience that understands why hearing an engine under load can reveal more about a machine than seeing it parked on a lawn.

That does not make Tutto Bene a race. Nor is it a conventional concours or static gathering.

It occupies the space somewhere between them.

Perhaps that is also why such a young event already feels relevant. Tutto Bene does not try to recreate an earlier era of car culture. It takes cars from different eras and asks what they still have in common.

The answer becomes fairly obvious once the road up Mottarone opens.

They are there to be driven.

After two days at Lake Maggiore, Michael Gross summed it up in one sentence:

“Some events display cars. Tutto Bene celebrates them.”

And perhaps that is the whole point.

Slow down to go fast.

Register on www.tuttobenehillclimb.it/ to stay tuned on 2027

pictures and text: Michael Gross

Author: Christian Plagemann

Christian Plagemann is one of two founders and Managing Directors of Classic Trader. Dream ride: Lamborghini Miura Current Ride: Mercedes-Benz 180 D Ponton View all posts by Christian Plagemann →