michael T. lynch pebble beach concours

Story by Michael T. Lynch
Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt unless otherwise noted

If you really want to do the Monterey Peninsula’s Automotive Car Week completely you have to arrive on the Friday before the weekend before the Pebble Beach Concours. The nine days include multiple car shows, auctions, panel discussions and book and memorabilia sales events. This year’s tally was 38 events that I would have been interested in, if I were younger. Let us take you to a few stops along the way.

If you have spare time during the week and have any interest in Italian machinery (and I know you do), you must make some time to see Robb Talbott’s Collection in the Motorcycle Museum in Carmel Valley Village, out where the sun shines much more than it does on the coast.

Above, the upstairs is primarily road and road racing bikes and, as you can see, the flavor is definitely Italian. However, who doesn’t love a BSA Gold Star Clubman. (Lynch photo)

Brandes Elitch has previously written of this Museum in the August 30, 2016 edition of VT, but the quality of this collection should be mentioned as often as possible.

The downstairs has flat trackers, speedway bikes, motocross machines, desert sleds and anything else that ran on dirt. I hope I conveyed how any trip to the Monterey area is incomplete without viewing this jewel of motorcycle history. (Lynch photo)

Monterey Car Week

The congestion caused by Car Week events has resulted in at least one City Council person in every Peninsula City to call for the abolition of the week. The municipalities have brought part of the problem on themselves. Most have ordinances to protect the taxpayers by calling for events to pick up the cost of police overtime, cleanup, etc. This is understandable, but most cities did not enforce those ordinances so they could attract people to their towns. Now the events are being charged in some cases and we will see what effect this has on the events themselves, some of which are always marginal financially. Whatever happens, you can be sure bandings of the CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) will continue to keep the abolitionist cause alive via letters to the editor, City Council comments, etc.

Two bright spots in the week, optically speaking, are the Carmel-by-the-Sea Concours on the Avenue on Tuesday and the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance on Thursday. The venue for both is the same, Ocean Avenue, the Main Street of Carmel. These two events are free, allowing the locals to see the Concours cars without paying the mid-three figure prices of the main events. They thus draw huge crowds, including many families. These events are somewhat of a payback to the local communities who suffer through the inconveniences of the week.

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