One Man’s Monterey, 2013

By Wallace Wyss
Photos by Author unless otherwise noted

Dear Editor,

Automobilia was the first event I rolled into, which starts Tuesday morning of “car week” and is held in the Embassy Suites hotel in Seaside. This event has at least 30 vendors and they all bring their specialties. Some bring out of print books (I was shocked when the vendor next to my booth told me he sold three books for over $1400 each!). Some bring older posters both pre-war and post-war; there was a vendor from England with original photographs that he was proud to say “weren’t digital.” A few sell car bits, like the fellow next to me selling Rolls Royce radiator ornaments.

And then some were selling clothes that were either copying old pre-war racing clothing or in the spirit of sports car clothing. I had my own booth vending the brand spanking new Incredible Barn Finds and was pleased when, on the second day of the event, I met people who’d bought one the first day and were enthusiastic to finish it.

I even met a guy who read my novel Ferrari Hunters and said I captured the ambiance of Newport Beach! Oh, in the Famous People Dept.,at one of the events where I had a booth, along comes a familiar gray-haired gent in blue jeans who stopped to look at a book but my publisher, quicker on the draw than I thought a guy would be from Hudson, Wisconsin, said “No, this is the book you should be looking at” and handed the new book to Jay Leno and he liked the concept so much he referred me to his producer right behind him and promised I would be interviewed for his website.

The best booth for me at the event was a former Ferrari Owner’s Club president selling his lifetime collection of Ferrari memorabilia and every few minutes I could go over and paw through it for this old magazine or that, all of which I need to find incredibly arcane facts for the Barn Find series. I hope that Automobilia and its rival over at Pebble can always find a place for the little guy/non-commercial hobbyist selling his lifetime collection because that’s one of the reasons enthusiasts go to events.

McCall’s Airport Wing-Dig

McCall Aviation has a wing ding on Wednesday night and this one involves old planes (I recognized a P51 Mustang though doubt they flew them in combat with the body of freshly polished aluminum) and new planes (assorted biz jets), plus old cars. This event is what you imagine a posh cocktail party would be if you held it in an airplane hangar and filled the surrounding area with cars. I was impressed by the Aston Martin display of new cars, which had an astonishing variety of colors, including some of those “flat colors” like Lamborghini offers. I wonder what the car polish makers think of “flat” color—I mean how can you make it shiny?

I enjoyed the Pagani display and meeting Mr. Pagani himself, who is short, but intense. I traded him one of my Incredible Barn Find books, autographed, for one of his hardbound press release books which, in a moment of generosity, I gave to my publisher, Dave Hohman to take back to Hudson WI where I am fairly sure Pagani is still a relatively unknown marque.

Concorso Italiano

For this wing-ding I was both a booth holder and wearing my reporter hat. There is always a lot to see at Concorso. One mystery was a mid-engined Ferrari half burnt out. Was this guy protesting some engineering flaw of his Ferrari or maybe a bad insurance settlement? At the Intermeccanica display had a long conversation with an owner of a later Italia who showed me his Italia which had the later designed front suspension able to cope with the heavy American V8, so now I know what to look for should an Italia come my way. I also met an Apollo owner who owns the original “Thorndyke Special”( from the film “The Love Bug”). I thought the tribute to Apollo was great because it took a whole marque and elevated its visibility. Alas one car we hoped to see was the Intermeccanica Indra, but it wasn’t there but maybe next time around.

The Quail

Their press release listed some of the notable attendees including Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie, Jay Leno, Patrick Dempsey, Jean Todt, Michelle Yeoh, Adam Carolla, Juwan Howard, Nicole Trunfio and a surprise guest, seven-time Formula One World Champion, Michael Schumacher, who spoke during one of the Fireside Chats. I was only there for an hour so didn’t see any of these people but I applaud their practice of setting up live interviews so that luminaries can be interviewed.

This year there was a tribute to Peter Brock Designs, (Brock being the former Shelby American designer who did the Daytona coupe), and who is now known for his early role in the 1963 Corvette Stingray, though he only worked at GM as an intern in 1957. Also on display was another Brock design that was never finished or raced, the “super coupe”, a 427 version of the Daytona coupe with a larger body that Shelby abandoned when Ford told him they only wanted to push the GT40. Missing was the Samurai, a mid-engined car he did with a Hino engine but to make up for that was the Triumph 250K which was a totally modern car design on a totally obsolete chassis.

One of the funny things at the Quail that I ran across was a group of fans being guided by the exceedingly articulate Alain de Cadenet, a race driver, and SPEED TV host, who was walking along at a furious pace, announcing the significance of everything he saw. Though I have yet to sign up for such a tour, I think this is a brilliant idea—to follow someone around who is a world-class expert on everything he sees. Like having your own little Yoda. The Quail also gave each attendee a magnificent magazine, about ¾ of an inch thick, all color, which had articles on some of the new cars, but also some good history like the tribute to Martin Swig, a San Francisco bay area car dealer who started the California Mille tours.

Rolex Motorsports Reunion at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway

This year the honored marque was Corvette, and I went to the noon-time parade on Saturday expecting to find many vintage Corvettes –some of each year. But there was only a sprinkling of old ones in the parade. There was a splendid SR-2 in the lead but where was the original Sting Ray race car? Or the Mako Shark and Mako Shark II? I had assumed a whole raft of GM prototypes would be there but no, it was mostly much later production cars.
The biggest thrill for me at the track was seeing a project completed, and that was Jim Hull’s Bugatti. He finished it in a beautiful natural dark grey finish. I’ll do a story on this later on.

And of course continuing my promotion for the unknown Cobra Ranch clothing line I handed out Cobra Ranch jeans jackets to a couple of Cobra owners who I thought were doing a good job polishing the legend including one of the two sons of Lynn Park who were racing dad’s cars (against dad no less!) and the wife of Gordon Gimbel, a retired oil tanker captain who was into Cobras before anybody.

Speaking of Cobras I looked in at the Gooding auction and saw Tom Warth, my first publisher who always displays chipper English demeanor, to see if anybody was enthusiastic over his small block Cobra. The management had predicted in the program it would take in the vicinity of $660,000 but I am happy to report it took at least $100K more. Now the question is should I re-possess the Cobra Ranch shirt I gave him now that he is no longer a certified Cobra owner?

The Pebble Beach Concours

This year the throng of spectators out on the green where the cars were was almost overwhelming—you could catch just glimpses of cars in some cases. The car that blew me away most was the Alfa 6CM3000 in red with a glass top. It looked from the rear ¾ like a giant Duetto. I especially like the little chrome hinges that held the top parts together. And of course, being one who is newly entranced with colors and textures, in the prewar cars I enjoyed the snakeskin, alligator skin and other odd upholstery here and there, some with matched luggage.

I was shocked to see a whole raft of 911 Porsches and, strangely did not go over to them because Porsches are so efficient and so practical and so refined over the many decades of the 911 that I didn’t think they fit the flamboyance of the occasion. I mean we’re talking cars out there with baroque one off bodywork, alligator skin interiors with fitted luggage, cars whose sole raison d’être was nothing more than to be as flamboyant a piece of iron as you can be on four wheels and then to compare them to 911 Porsches! My brain couldn’t compute so I withdrew from the Porsche area and went back to the glamour of the rest of the field. Maybe if I went to some all-Porsche event like Rennfest, I could get into them but they seemed antithetical to Pebble Beach.

The weather at Pebble was splendorous with only a short twinge of coldness in the morning. I didn’t stay around for the announcement of winners, because I was already winging it home but felt that though I’d missed a lot I had done about as much as one man could do in six days…on the way home I drove through some desolately parched territory crossing from the 101 eastward to the 5 South , but managed to find one or two barns to shoot for covers for future barn-find books. Hey maybe I should do a book on barns….

VeloceToday Select Number One:
Cuban Grand Prix, 1957
by David Seielstad