I believe Wilfried Bucke has created around 40 upgraded “Elites” using high-end PCBs remaining after the Fidelity company was closed and sold to Mephisto. Wilfried has fitted these PCBs into Elite A/S, Elite Avant Garde or Prestige boards. They are not all 68060 Avant Gardes by any means. Each one is probably a little different from the next in terms of its origins and accessories, board used, cpu and clock speed. This individuality and the fact that only around 25 68060 v.11s have been built makes them rare by any definition.
 

You can find out all about the Fidelity Elite Avant Garde series and Version 11 from features written by Alwin Gruber at Kurt Kispert’s website (link here) and also on Schachcomputer.info Wiki (link here). The v.11 ranks alongside the strongest dedicated chess computer hardware available (in 2007) with a current rating of 2280 Elo.

This v.11 started life as an Elite Avant Garde 2100. It was owned by Ken Gorman of Doska Chess Supplies. Ken supplied me with the Fidelity Elite A/S Glasgow I still own and a number of other machines in the 1980s. In those days I had to trade in my old chess computers to get a later model. How I came to regret trading in a Great Game Machine, an ESB, a SciSys Intelligent Chess, a Fidelity Printer, a Novag Super Expert and other gems. An Elite Avant Garde was always high on my wish list but I could not justify spending so much on a chess computer, at the time.

Anyway this Avant Garde 2100 had developed a serious fault and Ken’s repairman could not repair it. So eventually it came to be sold on Ebay described as unrepairable, and I bought it with a v.11 in mind.

It is a shame to see the demise of a superb old machine but the beautiful board carries on with the exotic 68060 hardware inside.