It’s Friday, you can take 20 minutes or so to just lose yourself in this, right? Your boss will understand. Or, if you’re working at home, your dog will:
The video covers the main events we hit over Monterey Car Week: the Mecum auction, the Quail, the incredible Concurs D’Lemons (we’ll have a video just about this one coming up soon), the racing at Laguna Seca for the Historics, and finally the Concurs D’Elegance at Pebble Beach. There’s a bit of a character-driven plot here, as you can watch our own David’s progression from Detroit-area grease weasel who feels uncomfortable surrounded by all these fancy people who put their food in refrigerators and don’t sleep in piles of oily rags and newspaper, to the end, where, after careful tutelage about The Finer Things from Beau and repeated badgering from me, he blossoms into a person who now appreciates the elegant grandeur of what the Concurs is, as well as someone who can put away some caviar. There’s some gems to see in each section of the video! At the Mecum auction we have the funny little wicker-seated Fiat 500 Jolly that finally broke through David’s cynical shell, and a really good boy:
Then, at the Quail, there’s a really rare Meyers Manx Resorter, a long-wheelbase version of the Manx only sold to hotels and resorts, along with a rare sighting of a Road & Track editor in the wild, feasting on fish eggs:
Then there’s the Concours D’Lemons, the ideal antidote to all the wealth and cloying perfection of the other events, and somewhere that has, I think, as good and interesting a selection of cars as any event during the whole week, and I’ll prove that with my tangelo-sized fists if I have to. Here’s a little snippet of what that was like – again, we’ll have more from Lemons coming soon:
A post shared by The Autopian (@theautopian) After Lemons, there’s the Historics, which is absolutely incredible to see, because it’s a massive amount of rare and fascinating cars all in one place, and actually being driven, and driven hard. This is the most visceral of all the events, as you hear the engines, feel the heat and vibrations, smell the fuel and oil and rubber and steel and see the cars, laid open and bare, being raced and repaired and rebuilt, all around you, everywhere. It’s incredible. Here’s a couple of little videos that didn’t go into the big cut up there, but still have fascinating cars:
A post shared by The Autopian (@theautopian) The Best Golf Cart I’ve Ever Seen was at the Historics, too, a Yamaha G5 Sun Classic, which I’ve mentioned before: A post shared by The Autopian (@theautopian) And, finally, the Concurs D’Elegance itself. I hope the video adequately conveys the sorts of incredible cars that showed up there, because there’s really nothing else quite like it. This 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne was a favorite of Beau’s – well, really, all of us, and it’s something I wish I could have had all of you Autopians with me to see and geek out over. I hope this gives you a bit of a taste of what these remarkable events are like, especially through the filter of dipshits like David and myself, because there’s no good reason (well, I suppose there’s plenty of practical/financial reasons) why events like these shouldn’t be something all gearheads, of all kinds and kinks and interests, can enjoy, and enjoy deeply. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re a dipshit like me who had to borrow nice clothes or like David, who literally eats groceries out of his truck bed – in the end, we’re all Car People, and that’s what matters, and that’s why Car Week is so incredible. Also one of the last remaining events you can attend while poor, as long as you can summon the Power of Waking Up Real Early. A sampler of what was there, as it left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axhyg9u4Od0 And Tiny Screw Guy is a hero.
