An Influential Voice in Automotive History Returns to Lime Rock

The belief that great cars are meant to be driven takes centre stage at Lime Rock Park on the Labor Day Weekend of September 3–7, when Miles Collier , founder of the Revs Institute, returns to the Connecticut venue as the Honoured Guest of Historic Festival 44. He will be joined by Scott George, Chief Curator at the Institute, bringing a remarkable selection of historic cars – some on display, some for racing – back to Lime Rock. Celebrating its 44th year, the Lime Rock Historic Festival is a motoring extravaganza that features parades, tours, concours and lots of motor racing.

Photos Courtesy Revs

This year’s Featured Marque, Alfa Romeo, is a fitting choice, for few manufacturers are so intertwined with motor sport in both the pre-war and post-war eras. Revs will add to that story with a selection of rare and important Alfa Romeos alongside significant examples from the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), cars that connect directly to the earliest days of American road racing. Amongst them will be an 8C 2900 from before the war and a Giulia TZ reflecting the marque’s next chapter of lightweight, purpose-built cars, that proved that competed on the international stage, including Sebring.

Collier, collector, historian, philanthropist, and former racing driver, is widely regarded as one of the leading champions of automotive preservation and scholarship in the world. Born into the Collier family, whose patriarch Barron Collier was a prominent New York advertising magnate and the founder of Collier County, Florida, he grew up in an environment steeped in cars, business, and culture. His father, C. Miles Collier, and uncle Sam Collier were pioneers of American sportscar racing in the 1930s, helping to introduce the discipline to the United States.

Collier himself spent roughly a decade racing, notably in an E-Production Porsche Speedster and other competition cars, and in 1984 he was named the inaugural “Driver of the Year” by the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA). Beyond the cockpit, he developed a reputation as a connoisseur and early advocate of preservation-focused collecting, emphasising originality and historical integrity over heavy restoration.

In 1986 Collier acquired the famed Cunningham Museum collection of Briggs Cunningham, including the first Ferrari racing car ever sold in the United States and one of the six Bugatti Royales, which became a cornerstone of what evolved into the Collier Collection.

To provide a scholarly home for these and to promote serious study of the automobile, Collier founded Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, a non-profit museum and research centre that opened in 2008. The institute houses over 100 important automobiles from 1896 to 1995, extensive archives in one of the largest specialised automotive libraries in the world, and educational programs. It is recognised as a leading centre for automotive history and conservation. It operates a 12,000-square-foot workshop dedicated to car restoration and the development of innovative ways to care for antique machinery. Collier has also organised symposia on collecting and preservation, helping to frame the automobile as an object of design, culture, and technological history rather than mere transportation. His contributions have been widely acknowledged by major institutions, including the Automotive Hall of Fame.