If you’ve not been, you might wonder what the big deal is; and that would be fair enough. But, from its beginnings as a road race and accompanying car show at Pebble Beach 75 years ago, the week has grown into something that attracts tens of thousands of visitors a year – and it’s still growing.
As a Brit, I’d like to proudly point out that no single show during Monterey Car Week is as large or impressive as either Goodwood Festival of Speed or Goodwood Revival. But as a collection of events and auction sales, and as a gathering of automotive enthusiasts, it is unprecedented. It’s also far more important globally in terms of the collector car market than anything else out there. Our analysis of the Monterey sales is here.
The big one is still Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, which started out in 1951 as a side show to the exciting and rather lethal Pebble Beach Road Races through the beautiful Del Monte Forest. You can read about those early races in the latest issue of Magneto, by the way, available here.
Now, Pebble Beach is the most important concours in the world, attracting the greatest cars and most significant car collectors from all over the world. This year saw reappearances by such greats as the Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic (featured in Magneto 30), the three Alfa Romeo BAT cars, the Round Door Rolls-Royce and the highest number of the greatest coachbuilt Ferraris of the 1950s and ’60s than has ever been seen in one place before.
Honestly, it was mind-blowing – and that’s before adding in the Icons of Japanese Motorsport class or the display of more than 40 Lamborghini Miuras or the firing-up of the twin-engined Sunbeam 1000hp land speed record car. Not to mention the Fiat Bartoletti Ferrari transporter complete with 250 GTO and Testa Rossa on the back…
The first viewing of the Concours cars is always early on the Thursday morning at the start of the Pebble Beach Tour, where the game is to play ‘spot the Best of Show’. We picked out Fritz Burkhard’s 1938 Delahaye 165 Figoni & Falaschi Cabriolet and Harry Yeaggy’s ex-Clark Gable 1935 Duesenberg SSJ as the most likely winners, and at the Concours on Sunday added William Heinecke’s stunning 1955 Ferrari 375 MM Pinin Farina Berlinetta to our list. As it turned out, all three were picked as contenders, along with Roberto Quiroz’s 954 Ferrari 375 America Vignale Cabriolet.
In its correct bright red, the Delahaye was perhaps a little too loud for the sensitive choice of Best of Show. The 375 would have made a fantastic post-war winner but it’s hard to argue against the magnificent cars of the 1930s when it comes to the top prize, and sure enough the Duesenberg was crowned the worthy Best of Show winner. What a way to end Monterey Car Week – and Sandra Button’s incredible reign as chairman. She now steps down to be replaced by Vince Finaldi.
So let’s rewind to the start of the week, which begins at the hot and dusty Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca, surely one of the world’s greatest tracks for Historic racing. On the first weekend of Car Week, Laguna Seca sees its famous Corkscrew section being used in the wrong direction for the Pre-Reunion hillclimb, which is a wonderfully low-key but exciting way to start, if you can arrive early enough.
Historic racing at Laguna Seca then kicks off again later in the week as the Monterey Motorsports Reunion for several days of large, world-class grids, from motorcycles to thunderous CanAm and NASCAR. Thanks to the natural bowl that the track sits in, spectating is excellent and the tracks facilities are being steadily improved. It’s well worth seeing.
The much more sedate Concours on the Avenue occurs in lovely Carmel by the Sea – though the event and the town become markedly less sedate as the week goes on, becoming overrun by cars and owners. Many more events follow during the week, including the now-massive German car Legends of the Autobahn, but the next big one for the big collectors tends to be The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering.
Such is The Quail’s popularity now, the visitors have to enter a ballot for their chance to buy the $1500 tickets, which sell out every year.Those who do manage to get in will find that there’s very little in the way of a motorsport gathering any more; The Quail has become the place in the US for high-end and low-volume manufacturers to launch their new models.
Czinger, Porsche, Aston Martin (above), Lamborghini, Hennessey, RUF and many more provide a rota of unveilings throughout the morning, with our highlight being the rock guitar-accompanied reveal of the new Gordon Murray Automotive S1. There’s more on those here. Sadly the cost of exhibiting means that some manufacturers chose to reveal their new models to select customers only at private houses nearby, the most notable of those being Singer and especially McLaren with its exciting new manual transmission McL 6GT (said to be inspired by the 1970 M6 GT). They’d have gone down a storm at a public unveiling.
This year, the well-deserved honoree was Beverly Hills ultra-enthusiast Bruce Meyer, whose 1957 Ferrari 625/250 Testa Rossa won Best of Show. With Bruce’s cars off the table for judging choice, we selected Caretakers Collection’s one-off 1994 Lamborghini Diablo VT Jota for the Magneto Editor’s Award. One of the other highlights of The Quail was a celebration of 100 years of Route 66
In start contrast to The Quail is Saturdays exotics on Broadway, which is mostly free to enter and entirely packed with supercars and people. So many people. If you’ve ever worried that the younger generation isn’t interested in cars, just visit this event. But if you’re in the least bit claustrophobic, stay well away. What an amazing and encouraging tesament to the popularity of the modern supercar though.
Of course there are evening events as well, with The Quail launching its new one and the second year of The Paddock taking place on the same golf course that houses the long-running Concorso italiano the following day. We visited The Paddock to find a relaxed atmosphere and a curious mix of hot rods, supercars and regular classics. In contrast, Consorso Italiano on the Saturday was packed and almost solely focussed on Italian cars and motorcycles. After a dire few years, Concorso seems to be back and better than it’s been for years.
Now add to this numerous smaller events, the relatively new phenomenen of crowds of young onlookers lining the streets pointing cameraphones at every interesting cars (again, a great sign of the popularity of the automobile) and countless collector cars passing by or parked up in Carmel and Monterey, as well as the five auction houses and various pop-up events, and you’ve got a spectacular but increasingly crowded and expensive week. Should you go? Yes, of course. But give yourself a few days to recover afterwards.
