2011 Monterey Highlights

Photo highlights from 2011 Monterey Classic Car Week

Favorite memories of 2011 Monterey Classic Car Week in pictures. Enjoy.

2011 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

2011 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

Nobody can throw an anniversary party like the folks at Pebble Beach. To celebrate 50 years of the Ferrari 250 GTO, the world's most famous classic car show convened an incredible collection of Enzo's most coveted creation. And what a gathering it was. More than half of the 39 250 GTOs in existence were on display – the official number quoted was 22, although we could only count 21. The line of cars literally stretched farther than our cameras could capture. Factoring in the going rate of $25 million for a 250 GTO, the collection of Ferraris represented more than half a billion dollars worth of Pininfarina sheet metal and V12 engines.

Some of the more notable 250 GTOs present:

1961 Ferrari 250 GT Sperimentale, chassis 2643GT: This is regarded as the 250 GTO prototype, being the first Ferrari to combine the 250 SWB chassis and the race-spec 3.0L V12. The car raced at Le Mans in 1961 and at Daytona in 1962 with Stirling Moss behind the wheel.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, chassis 3223GT: This is the first official 250 GTO built. The car has several distinctive features including mis-matched headlights that were thrown on the car during a race at Daytona to help the drivers see the wall on the banking at night. This car was selected as the best in class.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, chassis 3705GT:This 250 GTO has one of the best racing histories, finishing first in class at the 1962 24 Hours of Le Mans, second overall. The car won every race it entered in 1965.

1964 Ferrari 250 GTO/64, chassis 5571GT:The first of three Series II 250 GTOs that features the lower and shorter Pininfarina body. The car raced at Sebring and Le Mans and was driven to victory at Daytona by Phil Hill.

You can see these 250 GTOs and the rest from the 50th anniversary celebration at Pebble Beach in the high-res gallery above.

Best of Show at Pebble didn't go to one of the GTOs however. No, it went to Peter Mullin's 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne. Voi-what?

Peter Mullin, who has about the most beautiful collection of pieces from the art deco movement in the world, now has one more item to add to his collection, the trophy that goes to the Best in Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. His 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne took the prize on Sunday.

Mullin has 15 Voisins in his collection, in addition to numerous Bugattis, Talbot Lagos and Delahayes.

"I'm a total French-car nut," he said. "French cars are the ultimate in automotive design, technology and performance."

On Sunday, the judges agreed. But it wasn't an easy decision.

"I thought it would be about like it always is here at Pebble Beach, they get better and better every year, and then you get here and there are over 200 beautiful cars all around you," Mullin said. "I heard, someone said, there were six cars with 100 points each [perfect scores] in our class."

If so, that's really something, since the class had only seven entries. But of course there can be only one winner per class. Pebble Beach now credits runners-up along with the winner. This year, those were a 1929 Bentley Speed Six and a 1938 Talbot Lago, both stunning.

But as every year, there can be only one winner.

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110821/CARNEWS/110829979#ixzz1Z1tBDLYr

2011 Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance

Photos from 2011 Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance

These ain't no trailer queens.

While you might expect that a car that cost more than a million dollars to restore beyond its original glory would be something you'd keep in a sealed zip-lock freezer bag in the guarded basement of a museum, the vast majority of the entries in the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance are actually driven on the street. Or at least they are driven once before the big show. On the Thursday before the concours--which leaves three days to repair dings, paint chips and mud splats--about 170 of the 210 or so cars entered in the concours roared off from the Equestrain Center above the Lodge and circumnavigated the Monterey Peninsula--squashed bugs on the windshield and all--to the delight of cheering fans waiting in beach chairs all along the route.

Thursday's circuit began with a short stretch of 17-Mile Drive and headed up into the hills of Monterey, through Tehama preserve, down Carmel Valley Road and then shot off south to Big Sur and back. A lunch stop in downtown Carmel provided plenty of opportunity for the public to ogle the parked cars while their drivers had lunch.

Surprisingly, almost all the cars made the trip without problems. One of the most difficult parts of the tour are the uphill sections, not because the cars don't have enough power to get up them, but because they tend to travel in a sort of conga line nose-to-tail. When one car without a synchromesh first gear has to stop to downshift, the whole line has to stop, except those quick enough to figure out what's going on and steer around the halted caravan, preserving their momentum. Stopping and starting again and again on a steep hill is not easy on these old drivetrains, and you could smell burned clutches when it happened.

But as the cars spread out on the much flatter Highway 1 to Big Sur and back, the great beasts could open up a little and roar along as their original builders intended them to.

The cars are all in private garages now having the bugs surgically removed from the windshields. Come Sunday, you won't know they ever left the showroom.

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110819/CARNEWS/110819853#ixzz1Z1vUUQ1n

2011 Quail: A Motorsports Gathering

Photos from 2011 Quail: A Motorsport Gathering

The 2011 Quail, a Motorsports Gathering was best described in the brief opening remarks of the Honorable Sir Michael Kadoorie, patriarch of event and the man on whose sprawling property the show has taken place for nine years. He said simply: “Enjoy yourselves and drink plenty of champagne.” Nothing more. Words to live by.

Kadoorie flies helicopters, loves race cars and owns about a million hotels all over the world, but it might be the race cars that he enjoys the most. So when the Quail became available to host an event after the raucous Concorso Italiano outgrew this fine setting, Kadoorie and a dedicated and talented team took the opportunity. Kadoorie had been hosting a rally for friends for about five years before that. So the Quail became a natural outgrowth of the rally.

Gordon McCall, who puts on the Motorworks Revival, more commonly known as the Jet Party, was pivotal in the Quail's formation and growth. Though growth is a bit of a misnomer, since the event is supposed to be limited to 3,000 attendees a year. Scanning the lawn this year, in the afternoon it seemed as if there were about 300,000 people there, but they were all pretty well behaved.

Among the honorees was the great Porsche driver Derek Bell, five-time winner of Le Mans. And not class wins, mind you--Bell won it overall five times. Organizers had lined up two cars to commemorate Bell's visit, a Porsche 935 and a Ferrari 250 GT.

“I didn't know what the 250 was there for,” said Bell. “Then someone explained that I had mentioned once that as a kid I had watched a 250 in a race and that it had inspired me to go into racing.”

The 935 was one Bell had raced but was not one of his more glorious mounts.

“I hit the wall at Pocono at 180 mph in this car,” he said. “I spun round to see Danny Ongias coming at me.”

Ongias braked and didn't hit him, but it wasn't like having one of the Rothmans 962s on hand. Not that anyone was complaining.

Bell later took the stage for a “fireside chat” with journalist Winston Goodfellow, during which Bell discussed his new book, a revision of My Racing Life.

“Now that I'm out of racing, I don't feel compelled to hold back on anything,” Bell said. Guess we'll have to read the book.

This year's Quail also commemorated the 50th anniversary of Phil Hill's world championship, and we saw members of the Hill family strolling the grounds.

There were tributes to cars that raced at Riverside, our favorite of which was the 1975 AAR Eagle Jorgensen Formula 5000.

The 50th anniversary of the Jaguar E-type featured several examples of that great design, but the highlight was when a whole litter of them roared out of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, over Laureles Grade and into the Quail with full California Highway Patrol escort, assembling as the centerpiece of the show.

Among those cars were a pair of Can-Am entries, our favorite of which was owned and driven by AC/DC frontman and current best friend of Autoweek Brian Johnson, who spent a good 15 minutes or so hanging around with various Autoweek editors.

Who knows who'll show up in 2012?

Tickets are not on sale yet for next year's Gathering, but when they are you can get them at www.mccallevents.com.

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110821/CARNEWS/110829986#ixzz1Z1shsGfJ

2011 Concorso Italiano

Photos from 2011 Concorso Italiano

More room, flatter fairways, more cool cars and even a section of barn finds and beaters made this year's Concorso Italiano one of the best ever.

As you may recall from the 26- or 28-year history of this perennial classic, recent servings of Concorso Italiano have been a little up and down, with venue changes and field sizes that didn't always show these great cars in their fullest possible glory. There were the buses that took us around the first year of the Black Horse golf course, followed by the year of the cold, hard cement of the Marina Airport, and then the box canyon of last year's show. But we put up with it because we love these cars and nothing was going to keep us away from them.

Well, 2011 was no such year. Organizers discovered three huge fairways on the same golf course they used last year, opening up the whole show to give tifosi a little more elbow room between the fenders.

“The setting is the best,” event emcee and Italian-car fan Keith Martin said. He is the publisher of Sports Car Market and a former Autoweek contributor. “There are more cars than ever. It not only achieved its former provenance but surpassed it.”

Concorso president Tom McDowell estimated there were “roughly 1,000 cars” and “I'm guessing 8,000 people.”

With room for them all.

“We really like the new layout,” a slightly sunburned McDowell said at the end of the day. “From the feedback we've gotten, people really appreciate the venue.”

A big hit this year was the “Originals and Barn Finds” section, with 21 unrestored Italian cars and four barn finds. Heck, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance started a class for unrestored cars, why not Concorso? Maybe because so many Alfas across the country look like unrestored barn finds? Just kidding. Don't send hate mail.

And unlike past years that featured what seemed like 10 million 355s and an equal number of Murciélagos, this year seemed to balance the old and the new with a mix that appealed to almost everyone.

“It's a little more spread out,” entrant John Maclay said, standing next to his 1964 Alfa 2600 (“It's got enough power to be interesting.”). “It was nice, a real variety of cars.”

Best of Show this year went to Pete Vasquez's superbly delicate 1953 Fiat Stanguellini, an intricately styled 2+2 that had something cool in every fender and dash panel.

“Last year it was on the lawn at Pebble,” Vasquez proudly pointed out. “[Winning here] just blows my dreams away.”

We ran into Frank and Janet Mandarano, the founding couple of what would become Concorso Italiano some 26 (Frank) or 28 (Janet) years ago.

“It's 28 if you count the years it was just the Maserati Club,” said Frank.

“[This year] it was back to having fun,” said Janet.

The hit of the show might have been the guy who, on his way out, drove his Gallardo Spyder halfway into a sand trap. A pretty good crowd gathered to watch an inventive tow-truck driver extract him. Autoweek alumni Byron Pope helped engineer the retrieval. Together they pulled it back from the brink, just like the organizers of this year's and last year's shows. The Lambo driver, and probably all of the attendees, drove off happy as a clamshell hood opening.



Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110821/CARNEWS/110829988#ixzz1Z1q3qqPE