2011 Monterey Highlights

Photo highlights from 2011 Monterey Classic Car Week



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

2011 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

Photos from 2011 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

It's difficult to choose where to be on Friday during the Monterey Classic Car Week. Various car shows vie for our attention, including the Quail Motorsports Gathering, Concorso Italiano and Legends of the Autobahn. Deciding where to spend our time on Saturday, however, is easy. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is the place to be, with the Monterey Motorsports Reunion hosting hundreds of vintage race cars at the famous 2.24 mile racetrack.

Jaguar was this year's featured marque, highlighting the 50th anniversary of the E-Type. We generally think of the famous Jag as a beautiful road car, but it was a fierce competitor on track as well. An entire race category was dedicated to the E-Type, which made for an incredible sight.

Of course, not all of the race groups were Jaguars, and some of our favorite regulars were back at the track for another year. We always enjoy seeing the Shelby Mustangs and Cobras battle it out with the Corvettes, the IMSA racers, and of course the ever-competitive Trans-Am cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We only wish we could stay at the track all weekend to see every race.

One race we definitely didn't miss this year was the Ferrari group that included a Lusso, 275 GTC, a couple of SWBs...and four a half dozen or so GTOs. Incredibly, these cars were to be featured at Pebble on Sunday but spent a good hour or so on the track on Saturday, reminding those who got to see them exactly what they were built for in the first place. Another great year at Laguna Seca.

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 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

2011 McCall's Motorworks Revival at The Monterey Jet Center

20th McCalls Motorworks Revival at The Monterey Jet Center Photos



Another year, another Jet Center Party, another mind-blowing good time. For people who have never attended this Wednesday night party that unofficially kicks off Classic Car Week in Monterey - run, don't walk, to get tickets for next year's event. Although all of the events held around the peninsula during this week are worth attending, the McCall's shindig is truly unique.



The combination of cars, military aircraft, the latest corporate and personal jets, the food, the wine...and the people, is like no other. The cars alone are like a highlight reel of what's to come during the rest of the week. Plucked from Quail, the auctions and the private debut parties to be held over the ensuing few days, the cars are the heart of the party, but removing them would still land you a memorable night. But this is a car blog after all, so let's take a look at what this, the 20th installment of the McCall's event here in Monterey, wowed us with this year.



Entering the outer courtyard of the venue we were greeted by a matte black Lamborghini LP700-4 Aventador - the Murcielago replacement that picks up where the Reventon left off, and manages to drop a few hundred pounds and gain a few HP in its transformation into a more modern, sharp-edged supercar. While the overall dimensions are similar to the outgoing Murci, the cuts and creases remind you more of the LP560-4 Gallardo - which isn't a bad thing at all. It is stunning in person and promises to elevate Lamborghini's presence in this upper echelon of the hypercar segment with performance that will rival anything it is pitted against.



If matte black isn't your thing, there was also a reddish orange one inside the main event area, as well as a bare tub that proudly displayed the car's innards for closer examination. The materials used look just as exotic as the bodywork missing from this display vehicle and the components look like they were made by watchmakers. The Aventador duo were staring down a very yellow Hennessey Venom GT - the first one sold in the U.S. Standing beside the car was the man whose name appears on the rump of this stretched and stuffed Lotus Exige - John Hennessey. This LS9-ish powered monster offers nearly double the horse-count of the donor ZR1 and would probably feel right home on the grid at Le Mans.



A few feet away from the Venom was a carbon fiber track-only sculpture that is based on one of the most extraordinary new supercars of the last 10 years - the Pagani Zonda R. Where the new Aventador looks like carbon fiber origami with its prickly angles, the Zonda has a bioengineered organic feel to its form that makes it look like it was birthed from a living thing. And just like the Hennessey Venom GT, the man whose name is on the car was there to see people's reactions to his progeny - both the Zonda R and his new, U.S.-intended Huayra.



The Huayra was in the back of the main hangar, drawing us into a space that housed a few dozen more gems - but we lingered near the new Pagani for more than an hour before moving on. Part of the reason for that was the fact that Horacio Pagani himself was standing next to it, answering any question thrown his way, and happily opening any of the car's various panels with a flurry of unbuckling of straps and released latches. The simple truth is that Horacio has once again managed to create one of the most strikingly designed supercars in the world.



The components rival those of the Aventador that we marveled at, but elevate them into works of art. Truly, each of these mechanical ingredients looks fit to display in a museum. Pagani is one step ahead of us in this thinking, as several pieces were actually displayed in glass cases atop carbon fiber stands near the car. Gorgeous stuff that actually works as good as it looks - what a concept.



Our favorite bit had to be the key though. When Sig. Pagani placed a small silver model of the Huayra before us, we at first thought it a nifty keepsake for someone's desktop. Then the car was pulled apart revealing a USB jack. Ah, this must be a very clever - and expensive - press kit. When the other half of the miniature vehicle was inserted into a slot in the center stack of the Huayra, we were dumbfounded. This was no novelty item, it is the ignition key.



Near the Pagani stand sat a pair of Lotus Evora sportscars. One was a rather electric blue and the other was one of the company's race cars, done up in white with bare carbon accents. First shown and rcaed last year, the car appeared to have been refined somewhat for its sophomore season. Closer inspection revealed this to actually be the new GTE concept - a streetgoing version of the racecar. Think Scuderia or Porsche RS and you'll get the idea. Extremely handsome car and we hope that the large Lotus staff on hand for the debut took our drooling pleas to build it seriously.



Another car that we may have left a puddle of saliva in front of was a red Aston Martin with some less-restrained than usual lumps and bulges in its form. This was the new Zagato racecar and it looked brutal - handsome but brutal. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The car evokes memories of the mid-sixties dual-purpose racers from Aston's illustrious past - and conveniently, we only had to glance over our shoulder to see a few examples of that heritage. What a party!



The Ferrari display next to Aston Martin had a California, a matte white Italia that looked suspiciously like a possible Scuderia concept, and a shooting brake that s called the FF. Readers of this blog may note that these initials match my own. Coincidence? I think not, but the guard wouldn't buy it and didn't release the car to my care as I requested. It is often said that automotive journalists all have the same favorite car - a high performance station wagon with a stick shift. While that is certainly true of many of us, it is especially true of yours truly. A certain Hennessey-tuned Cadillac CTS-V wagon comes awfully close to depleting my willpower reserves when it comes to grand theft auto. This Ferrari takes things a step further, however, by being a 2-door. Che bella.



There was so much more to see and do at the party this year, but I'll have to catch you up later. It is late and I have an early date with a polo field. The Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance is tomorrow. For now, check out the gallery to see what we saw last night at The Jet Center in Monterey.