Monterey, 15th of August, 2014
The Classic Car week in Monterey has arrived at its final days
with the major events and the auctions coming up. First in the
morning the Quail Lodge Motorsport Gathering opened its gates
after the media preview at 10 am to the public. After the typical
cloudy morning hours finally the sun came up and burnt away all
the clouds for a sunny Friday at the Quail Lodge. Several Classes
were lined up in the middle of the field including the Great Ferrari,
post and pre-war sports cars, racing Mustang and modern
Supercars. Certainly a display for the 100th anniversary of
Maserati could not be missed but beside a nice Maserati 300S,
an early A6 Pininfarina and several road cars from the 1960s/70s
this class was rather small compared to previous anniversary
displays of the marque with the trident. In addition to this display
a visit from the racing Maserati from the nearby Laguna Seca
Race track had to be cancelled due to heavy traffic between the
two valleys of Laguna and Camel.
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The star of the display might have been the Le Mans winning
Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta that was brought over from
Nevada by Robert Lee together with a special bodied 250 GT
Boano with American inspired wings on the back. This unique car
was already presented at the Concours on the Avenue in Carmel
a few years ago where it won Best of Show.
But not just classics were on display as the various
manufacturers again took the opportunity to present their latest
toys to the wealthy and interested visitors, among them
especially Bentley and Bugatti with a big display directly in front
of the Lodge including the six Legends special editions of the
Bugatti Veyron that where surrounded the whole day by
spectators.
Whereas the hungry could enjoy various specialities from different
countries with fine wine and superb desert the others were
entertained with some interesting interviews on the main stage
including the Rock´n Roll theme with Pink Floyd drummer and car
enthusiast Nick Mason. Sir Jackie Stewart was very entertaining
with his stories about the beginning of his career both as race
driver and shooter and on the current F1.
Finally the class awards and the Best of Show were presented in
the afternoon and due to the missing of Judges the entrants
themselves had to choose the best cars in their own class.
Beside the Ferrari 166 MM and the Lotus Turbine F1 car, the
Maserati MC12 Supercar and the Maserati 300 S finally the
Talbot-Lago T150 C-SS Cabriolet was awarded Best of Show. As
common in the US most of the entrants were eager to leave the
field to get home early so the field was prepared to be given back
to the golfers the next day.
After the sale of the Ferrari yesterday and the daytime auction at
Bonhams today finally RM Auctions joined in the Auction
marathon of the week. Although tomorrow will see even more high
profile lots the first lots of the auctions already showed that the
market seems to be able to take the amount of cars available this
weekend in Monterey. With very few cars not sold and some very
strong results including another Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing
sold well over 2 Mio Dollar the interest was especially on the two
featured cars of the day expected to fetch in the region of 10 Mio
$. Whereas the Ferrari 250 LM met up with the expectations
achieving 10.5 Mio $ hammer price (exactly in the middle of the
low-high estimate) the Ford GT40 Roadster did not make as
much as expected with “just” 6.5 Mio $ hammer price.
Tomorrow will see the start of the races at the Rolex Monterey
Motorsport Reunion at Laguna Seca and in the evening both RM
and Gooding will have another sales day with several special cars
in the focus. On the other side the Concorso Italiano will be held
at its new date competing with the races for visitors.
Report & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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