The Automotive Dream “One man and his dream had not simply left the world with an engine and four wheels; Henry Ford and his Model T had influenced people's everyday lives - where they lived, how they spent their leisure time, even how they viewed themselves.” - Gary...
Monterey Car Week & Pebble Beach
Written by Irina
Gooding & Company, 2023 Pebble Beach Auction
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Lagonda 16/80 Special Six 1933
English Touring The car we present to you this week is the Lagonda 16/80 Special Six in the Demers Car Collection. Lagonda was a luxury British car brand that Aston Martin eventually absorbed. Through its association with Aston Martin, it is sometimes hard to remember...
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Before Aston Martin “The history of Lagonda cars is synonymous with sophistication, opulence, and groundbreaking performance” - An article for Discovery UK Today, we may recognize the name Lagonda from its association with Aston Martin. Before these two brands...
Cadillac Model A 1903
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Day 1
Ever since I started working with the Demers Car Collection, I’ve been hearing about the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. As the “world’s premier celebration of the automobile,” the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance gathers the best collectible cars in the world and assembles car enthusiasts in one iconic location. Set on the grounds of the Pebble Beach Golf Club in California since 1950, the festivities grew to include innumerable activities stretching over what is now called Monterey Car Week.
This is the first of four blogs recapping our experience at Monterey Car Week, culminating in the magnificent Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance. It is a bit different from our usual posts. Here, we adopt a more “diary entry approach” to share with you not only what we learned, but also what we experienced and felt.
Depth and Breadth
A hop and a skip away, Vanessa and I found ourselves landing into MRY on the 16th of August, 2023. The sun is setting and we can see rolling clouds hugging mountains through our window. As the airplane descends, we realize that those aren’t clouds, but a thick, all embracing fog that covers what we will discover to be a magical land where lace lichen moss hangs on every tree and where cars from all eras come back to life.
Day 1
Thursday morning started with the departure of the Pebble Beach Tour D’Elegance. The Tour D’Elegance was inaugurated in 1998 to incentivise collectors to not only bring their car to Pebble Beach, but to also drive them. The tour takes place along the iconic 17-mile route from Pebble Beach to Carmel by the Sea. Participants that finish the tour get a green ribbon that puts them at an advantage in case of a tie during judging at the Concours. We had the chance to watch cars go by, hear them roar and smell their fumes. Much appreciated were the era costumes that some of the drivers chose to wear!
We then made our way to the Gooding and Company tent. Here, we had the chance to get all close and personal with the cars at auction this year. Vanessa and I both left Canada not having ever seen a Lamborghini Muira. The one at the entrance of the tent was our first. We soon discovered a second one a little further in the room. (We left car week having seen so many Miuras that we lost count.) It was still morning, and coffee was offered. As we walked amongst Ferraris, Bugattis and Rolls-Royces sipping on our barista coffees, we reflected on the fact that this is a different type of Cars & Coffee. Gooding & Company is the only official auction house within the grounds of the Concours.
Our next stop was a forum panel titled “NextGen Collecting: The Road Ahead.” Here, we listened to Randy Nonnenberg, David Gooding, Bruce and Spencer Trenery discuss current trends in car collecting. Robert C. Yeager, panel moderator and author of the book The NextGen Guide to Car Collecting, first shared three trends he believes are influencing the hobby of car collecting: the rise of online transactions, the purchase of cars as investments and the shifting demographics of car buyers. To recap the discussion in one sentence; the hobby of car collecting is changing, because more and more diverse buyers are buying a bigger variety of cars that they deem collectible in a world where an abundance of information and connectivity makes those exchanges possible. And in two words: Depth and breadth.
Later on, riding around town in our Uber, we quickly realized the magic that is car week. This unique event allows car enthusiasts from all over to gather in a relatively small area. This means that you see cool cars everywhere you look. Our motel parking alone hosted two Ferraris, two McLarens, one Porsche and one cool Mustang. Walking on the street, we spotted @DavCars’ orange Lamborghini and many cars from the @DailyDrivenExotics crew. Once, while waiting for an Uber, we saw four Rolls-Royces in a row stop to pick up passengers. A Lamborghini, an Aston Martin and the newest Cadillac were someone’s airport pickups when we landed!
We finished the day attending a dinner organized by the Petersen Automotive Museum and sponsored by Hispano Suiza Cars. What a dream sentence! We got to talk about cars with museum members that were traveling together on a tour organized by the Petersen Automotive Museum. But, the Hispano Suiza Carmen Boulogne on display at the entrance of the Club truly stole the show. Don’t miss out our recap of the following days of the 2023 Monterey Car Week. Day 2 comes out tomorrow.
