Monterey Car Week On a Dollar a Day

I connect with Sylvia, with whom I corresponded prior to the trip. It was a pleasant surprise to find out she was attractive, like a young Sally Fields.

Stopped in Santa Barbara at a fancy-schmancy coffee place in Montecito but they didn’t have an almond croissant, so, maintaining my high gourmet standards, I pressed on, sustaining myself with food packed at home. At 1:30 pm. I arrive in King City, check into the Motel 6, $38 a room for a double.

Clue: If you want to stay near Monterey cheaply, stay far enough north or east that they are clueless when they hear the word “concours.”

Thursday August 13th
In the morning I press on to Spreckels exit off 101. It’s an uninteresting short cut to the Monterey Peninsula if you are going north, but I have yet to see an interesting car. Arrive in Monterey, finding the Hyatt Regency and make my way to Mecum auction bearing two of my artworks—one of Rob Walton’s Ford GT40, the other a canvas showing an 2006 Ford GT Heritage Livery. Leaving them on consignment I look briefly at the auction cars. They are displaying the Cobra Daytona coupe really nicely in a tent of its own.

I motor over to the Crossroad Shopping Center and park the Geo and go to Woodies of Carmel, a shop that sells my art, and pick up the keys to a test car. At first I don’t recognize it in the parking lot as a Maxima because it is so huge. But it’s a pleasant car even if it does have the push-to-start button that seems to be a novelty these days and which annoys me as superfluous. Of course, as a practicing motoring scribe for some decades, I have resources beyond my pocketbook; one for the occasional test car and where better to test the appeal of a new car than at a series of events where cars are being celebrated; so some legwork in advance provided a car more suitable for the festivities than my wheezing Geo.

I connect with Sylvia, with whom I corresponded prior to the trip on the theory that some events are more fun to attend with a woman. Looking for what they used to call a Girl Friday–someone who could fit right in and get with the program without much explaining being necessary, I found Sylvia through the Internet; she knew about art and that was important, because part of the reason I was going there was find out what the automotive artists were up to. The hope was that she would notice something I didn’t. It was a pleasant surprise to find out she was attractive, like a young Sally Fields. She is a farrier, a word I have to look up later, finding it is something to do with horseshoes. I tell her I know one end of a horse from another, having been a cowboy at some point in Montana but she looks dubious so I don’t mention it again.

We scoot over to the Ferrari gathering at a winery, Chateau St. Julian, a nice little European-styled place in Carmel Valley. There are dozens of Ferraris, and they honor the old ones a little more by parking them nearer the place where the group will be dining. We admire a dark blue N.A.R.T. Ferrari Spyder, and stop to look at a customized Dino (maybe it is a crime to customize a Ferrari in Italy, you don’t see that very much). I donate a print for the charity auction but then motor on.

I tell Sylvia we have to get going over to McCalls Jet Center bash– it was time to find food. The McCalls are a couple dedicated to airplanes and motorcars and there was plenty of each. Among the rarest of the rare is the fly yellow Pininfarina Ferrari Dino Competizione prototype built on a 206S chassis. It’s a miracle that tycoon Jim Glickenhaus was able to wheedle such a rare prototype out of Ferrari and/or Pininfarina. As one would expect there are airplanes scattered about, even some WWII airplanes, one that looks suspiciously like that black plane Howard Hughes crashed in Beverly Hills, but it’s mostly bizjets that various companies are trying to sell and/or fractionally rent.

There are many beautiful people here and I for one am hoping I don’t stand out as an interloper. Sylvia goes bananas over Morgans of various types but I kind of like the Morris Minor they had on display there. Then I sit in the back of the new Maybach Laundaulette and am disappointed that when I look to the right all I see is one fat C pillar, no feeling of convertibleness. Oh, well, when I look up I see a lot of sky. There is a divider window between me and where the chauffeur would sit. It looks like he would be a long way off. I wonder who would buy this car–maybe African dictators, but then the open top leaves you vulnerable to the odd grenade…Everywhere at this party there are Porsche Panameras but it makes me wonder, what can Porsche do next? A pickup truck? After all they used to do farm tractors but so did Ferrucio Lamborghini.

That’s getting to be the thing at Monterey–secret previews for the anointed ones.

On the way to the Del Monte Lodge, for Press Credentials, I see a glassed-in temporary tent-like building with a lot of rare Mercedes race cars, including a ’52 gullwing. They also have the new Mercedes Stirling Moss edition McLaren, and it’s a svelte car but the windshield seems as small as Sir Stirling’s eyeglass lens. Long after the event, I read that some of the 2010 AMG SLS gullwings– “Flugelturen” were present somewhere on the Peninsula but probably only for the high and mighty to preview. That’s getting to be the thing at Monterey–secret previews for the anointed ones. Now I know I wasn’t on the “A” list, “B” list but might have been on the “C” list because at least Infiniti representatives keep offering me cars to drive round the block.

I drop off a car-ed out Sylvia as night fell, and motor over to the Jaguar party at the Beach and Tennis Club in Pebble Beach. This is a swank event– live band, free drinks and food and a nighttime view of tranquil Carmel Bay. But the trick is you have to be invited. After I go to all the trouble to sneak across the grass in total darkness, I find out I’m on the list.

..survival dictates a more careful strategy of treading water at the precise juncture where the waiters emerge from the kitchen bearing trays loaded with food, so that I can be the first to snatch a morsel off the tray.

At the entrance, Ian Callum is explaining the new Jag-U-Are sedan to LA Times’ Dan Neil, who amazed me by taking shorthand left handed whilst still peppering poor Ian with questions about every curve and kink in the all new shape. Lots of beautiful ladies here, I think of tripping the light fantastic but then I demur—deciding survival dictates a more careful strategy of treading water at the precise juncture where the waiters emerge from the kitchen bearing trays loaded with food, so that I can be the first to snatch a morsel off the tray. The drink they are offering is oh-so-good, could it be just champagne and lemonade?

Camilo Pardo is in the crowd and ask him what’s he doing since he retired from Ford (where he designed the 2005-06 Ford GT production car) and he says “women’s fashion, men’s racing jackets and fine art.” He’s the only guy I know who retired after 20 years who still looks like he’s barely 20.

Sylvia is going to be sorry she missed this. She could have made a grand entrance, arriving on her horse, thundering up the beach with four new shoes.

Friday August 14th
I start out dining at MacDonald’s in King City (hey, would you believe I was once a restaurant reviewer?) and proceed forthwith, going it alone (horses needing shoes required Sylvia’s services) to LaDolce Vita and at first it looks good, Lamborghinis , Panteras, and Citroens driving in, and some Alfas, more than a dozen Maseratis and even Fiat 124s. The luncheon tent seems busy, though it’s too far for me to walk to.

I see one prewar car, a Citroen open car, and Mr. Hathaway brings his splendid Citroen SM with a trailer towing a near identical car, one which he took to the salt flats in an attempt to set a speed record. Larry Crane’s melodious voice is in the background, interviewing participants. I run over to Concorso Italiano, which boasts the famous trio of Alfa Romeo BAT cars and maybe 100 Ferraris, maybe 25 Lamborghinis, a few Maseratis and then mere sprinklings of Isos, including some long nose Grifos which I always thought had their noses lengthened to copy the Daytona, and alas, no Bizzarrinis– the car that I confess is my one true love. No Intermeccanica Indra either, a car I long to see again since I saw one in Beverly Hills and have to decide if my devotion to Bizzarrini shall continue unwavering.

Cadillac Allantes are there but a bit off in the distance. I am glad that Cadillacs-made-in-Italy are getting recognition at an Italian car show (only a few decades to late to help sales!) and rue the day that I wasn’t able to convince Cadillac to hire me to do the promo. I recall they had some glamorous babe whose idea of promotion was to commission a fashion book on the Allante, tied in with promoting Italian dresses. I would have posed it by Pininfarina’s greatest Ferraris, hell with the rags.

At some point I see a photographer I know, you know, the kind literally festooned with expensive cameras and $1000 lenses, and I show him the camera I shoot with. It still bore the price sticker from the thrift shop–$1.98. “It’s not the camera,” I intone with great gravity, “It’s the eye.” At least that’s what Ansel Adams told me when I met him at Pebble many years ago, back when he was an honorary judge.