Freshman David Kibbey has topped the podium of young car enthusiasts after winning “Young Achiever of the Year” in this year’s International Historic Motoring Awards.

On Nov. 22, Kibbey was declared the first-ever “Young Achiever of the Year,” a category recognizing someone under the age of 30 who has shown extraordinary skills or initiatives in the car collector world.

“It’s a huge honor,” Kibbey said. “I hope this will allow us to shine a light to more young people in the automotive industry and leave a bigger footprint.”

Kibbey is a freshman from Northville, Michigan, and plans to study finance. 

Kibbey’s nonprofit classic car show called “Northville Concours d’Elegance,” which he co-founded with his friend Drew Lehnert in 2021 at the age of 15, brings young car enthusiasts from around the country to Metro Detroit for car judging events. 

“Kibbey’s entry attracted the judges for his dedication to becoming a Concours judge at classic car events,” said David Lillywhite, a judge and sponsor of the 2024 International Historic Motoring Awards. “It’s a task that’s dominated by much older people generally.”

According to their website, Northville Concours d’Elegance holds comprehensive judging events where young people from around the country are paired with mentors to judge Northville’s classic car shows. They also run other programs through the organization including a Cars and Coffee group in Detroit and a children’s event with Toys for Tots.

“Our mission is to inspire the next generation of automotive enthusiasts,” Kibbey said. “I am so happy with what we’ve become and we just want to encourage people who are interested to get involved. We want people to follow their passion. And if cars are their passion, we want to open that door.”

Kibbey said his interest in collector cars developed at a young age, when he chose to follow in the footsteps of his brother into the car hobby. 

“I started doing a youth judging program at a car show near my house, and after five summers coming back for the show, a couple folks offered me the opportunity to judge the shows for real,” Kibbey said. “Then I saw that there was a lack of young people getting into the hobby, so that’s when I started Northville Concours and made it youth-focused. We continue that vision to this day.” 

The International Historic Motoring Awards are the only global awards for the collector car industry, according to Lillywhite. This year alone, he said there were at least 11 countries represented at the awards from four different continents.

For the last 14 years, the International Historic Motoring Awards have sought to “represent all aspects of the international classic and collector car movement, from events and restoration to personal achievement and youth involvement,” according to its website.

The culmination of this year’s efforts was the presentation dinner gala held at the Peninsula London Hotel in England.

“The night was everything and then some,” said Angela Hucke, Bugatii Trust Curator and attendee of the event. “What a community we’re a part of.”

Kibbey did not go to London to receive his award.

“I wasn’t able to go to the U.K. I had a midterm that day,” Kibbey said. “But I got to celebrate the award that night with a Thanksgiving dinner with my friends here on campus.”

While Kibbey does not know whether this organization will become his career or not, he says it has given him some amazing experiences through the past several years.  

“If I hadn’t tried it back then, all of these cool things and experiences we’ve done wouldn’t have come about,” Kibbey said. “So I’ll never say never — you never know God’s plan for us.”