Monterey Car Week is one of those events which kind of blows your mind on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
Where else do you go and see five Ferrari Enzos drive by, followed by 10 Koenigseggs and as many F40s and F50s. And that’s just for starters. Sitting in traffic to get into one of the car parks is an incredible experience, you watch jaws drop from the hundreds of people lining the roads as supercar after supercar goes by. And when you do park up, you fear you may never get out – there’s so much to see.
I love cars. But cars, for me, become really special when they have a genuine motorsport heritage and, particularly, some rallying provenance.
And that’s something we’re seeing more and more of at Monterey Car Week.
I first visited this event eight or 10 years ago, but it was two years ago that we were invited to display cars to The Quail, A Motorsport Gathering. There were 10 cars on show, we brought four of them, including the ex-Hannu Mikkola Audi quattro S1 E2 which won first prize in the rally car class. That was a really proud moment, not just because of the car – the pride was for the memory of the people: Hannu and Arne Hertz his co-driver, and for the sport. Being able to share these cars and those memories with another generation is so important.
Seeing cars in museums and in static displays is nice, it’s good. But I’ve always said that I want to see the cars I’m fortunate to own being used, being driven and being shared. There was a real sense of that last week – not least from the ‘Ghost Squadron’ a group of supercar owners who’d driven all the way from Texas to be there!
The ex-Mikkola Audi is always a star attraction
For those new to Monterey Car Week, it’s pretty much as the title suggests: a week of cars. Started in 1950, it’s an event I’ve seen grown quickly across the last decade. It started out as a gathering of car fanatics parked on the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach golf course. Now? Well, I talk about an event, it’s actually a series of events going on at Pebble Beach, at The Quail Lodge and Golf Club and at Laguna Seca circuit. And the traditional and official start of the week is Wednesday evening at Motorlux. Held at the Monterey Jet Center, this used to be known as the Jet Center Party, but it’s now owned by Hagerty.
This is kind of the place to see and be seen, there are some beautiful cars on display alongside corporate jets – not exactly an everyday sight! This is where we had the Audi on display with the Peugeot 205 T16 E2, Lancia Delta S4 and 037. In great rallying fashion, we were placed just in front of the bacon bar!
We’d also been invited to bring some Japanese cars to the JDM Car Show, a new addition to the Motorsport Reunion at Laguna Seca. It was great to see our ex-Tommi Mäkinen Subaru Impreza WRC, his 2002 car, there – but it was a real honor to see our X Games Subarus, the Colin McRae and Travis Pastrana cars, as well. It was even better when Ken Block’s Impreza was alongside. Now that’s a collection of Subarus!
As you can imagine, cars from McRae, Pastrana and Mäkinen gathered plenty of attention, but that gold Impreza with the ‘No Fear’ livery still stops people in their tracks – and that’s before they’ve heard the story of what Colin did with it!
Laguna Seca is the place where there’s some on-track action, with [McLaren Racing CEO] Zak Brown driving some of his historic race cars – we need to have him bring his rally cars next time. People like Zak and Jay Leno bring a real star appeal to the week – but there’s no doubt, everybody in Monterey last week was there to share an absolute love of cars. Chris Harris, for example, was on stage and completely blown away by what he saw. It was great to have Chris come by and look at my cars.
The 'No Fear' Subaru sparked plenty of interest, even without the incredible story behind it!
And, like I mentioned, an increasing love of rally cars is central to Monterey Car Week. People like Philip Kadoorie help in this direction. Philip’s family owns Peninsula Hotels which owns The Quail. Philip is very much a rally man, he’s finished fourth on the East African Safari Rally in a Tuthill Porsche and he’s competed on the Silver Fern Rally in New Zealand in a Lancia Stratos. It was Philip who first invited us to bring the Audi down two years ago – with people like him involved, rallying’s future is very, very bright indeed.
As usual, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance brought the event to a close on Sunday, with Best in Show going to a 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster.
Watching that amazing pre-war machine being showered with confetti on a stage overlooking the 18th hole brought into sharp focus the sheer variety of cars on show. Moving into the post-war, restomods were very much to the fore last week. Boreham Motorworks, for example, brought a Ford Escort Mk1 RS and an Alan Mann 68 Edition Escort. Those cars were at Motorlux on Wednesday, then moved to The Quail on Friday and Laguna Seca on Saturday. I wasn’t far behind them… Mk1 Escorts were very much part of my youth and my rallying education.
The highlight of my week? I’d have to say, it was just standing and watching these incredible cars go by. Whether it was trackside in Laguna Seca or just at the side of street as five, 10, 15-million-dollar cars just drove right by. That moving motorshow aspect was something very special.
What a fantastic week. Until next year…
