The five best cars, including the Lamborghini Miura, Ferrari Testarossa and Jaguar XK120, that stood out from the rest at this year’s Concorso D’Eleganza by Lake Como, Italy.

This past weekend saw the 2016 edition of the Concorso D’Eleganza at Villa D’Este, a hotel on the southwestern bank of Lake Como, in the north of Italy. This annual automotive get-together is a collection point for some of the world’s most extraordinary cars. The organisers must be a superficial lot, prioritising beauty over all other concerns, but that’s a flaw with which we can sympathise. Having spent some considerable time gawping at the entries, here’s our list of best in show. The combination of metal, glass and rubber never looked so good.

Looking back across history, the appalling events of WWII unavoidably colour our judgment of the 1930s, but taken in isolation it was a period of immense cultural significance. The jazz was great, the men’s clothes were supremely elegant and automotive design hit some high notes that will, in all probability, never be revisited. This Lancia’s bodywork was designed by the legendary carrozzeria Pininfarina, and contains a three-litre V8 engine that only produces a modest 82hp.

The 1971 Miura is an Italian automotive legend, and is testament to the genius of Mr Marcello Gandini, who was working for the styling house Gruppo Bertone when he designed this beauty. The Miura was cool enough to catch the eye of jazz icon Mr Miles Davis, who crashed his in October 1972 – perhaps he wasn’t used to the V12 engine’s considerable power; the SV’s motor produces 380hp. However, the car is even more potent visually than it is mechanically.

The style equivalent of the evangelical motto “what would Jesus do?” is “what would L’Avvocato wear?”. The Italian lawyer in question is, of course, Mr Giovanni Agnelli, the late Italian industrialist and style icon. It’s relevant because this one-off drop-top Testarossa was built for Mr Agnelli to celebrate his having spent 20 years in charge of Fiat (which then largely owned Ferrari). The Testarossa, one of the big beasts of the 1980s sports car scene, needs little introduction. It’s the personal touches like the blue stripe at the bottom of the bodywork that distinguish this car.

Does a car from Coventry in the UK’s Midlands, originally built on an ash-wood frame, and reliant on pre-WWII technology, deserve a place among such august company? Resoundingly yes, when it’s the XK120. The 120 refers to the car’s speed in mph, which made it the world’s fastest production car when it was launched in 1948, while the lines of the bodywork, penned by then-Jaguar boss Sir William Lyons, continue to seduce the eye seven decades later. Best of all, for the enthusiast, XK120s remain relatively affordable – a good one costs about the same as a new Porsche 911.

Maserati has an incredible history of producing heart-stoppingly beautiful racing cars, of which the “Birdcage” Tipo 61 is probably the most famous. Less well known is this 200SI, one of only 28 200S cars ever built. Powered by a two-litre, four-cylinder engine, the 200SI was not particularly successful on the track, but that’s of little concern at Concorso D’Eleganza. At the Villa D’Este, the generous curves that sweep over the Maserati’s wheel arches count for more than straight-line speed.

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All photographs courtesy BMW Group