Carmel-by-the-sea August 10th 2010
Just after the pre-reunion in Laguna Seca the concours week at
Monterey officially opened on Tuesday the 10th of August with the
forth edition of the Concours on the Avenue in Carmel.
Most of the events during the Monterey classic week have highly
priced entrance fees as they are for charity but the Concours on
the Avenue is the exception. This event is held on the public
Ocean Avenue in Carmel and totally free for the public. Surely this
attracts many visitors to take a peak at the cars even if they are
not car fanatic and therefore it helps to delight even more people
for classic cars. The downside of this concept is that it is very
dependent on sponsorship to keep it going as money is short
without these additional earnings.
After 3 successful editions in recent years this year rumours
came up that the organisation failed to scare up the necessary
funds but at the end they managed to get a smaller edition this
year. Whereas the 2008 event was even a two day event with
about 180 cars divided in a multi-marque day and a day purely for
Ferrari and Porsche this year's edition was held as a single day
event as it was last year. Without a ramp for an award ceremony
it became more a relaxed meeting then a full-valued concours
when about 35 cars parked on the picturesque Ocean Avenue.
The first cars arrived at about 10 o´clock and where welcomed by
the waiting crowd. Just up the street from the nearby beach more
and more people came by over noon, some of them accidently on
their way to lunch. If one listened carefully to the conversations
one could see that most of them were delighted by the cars on
the street but had few ideas about their history especially on
exotics like the Swallow Doretti or the Apollo GT.
As in the last editions the cars were roughly divided in a German
section, an American section and a sports car section. The
German section surely consisted of some interesting Porsches
including a very rare Glöckler 356 Roadster, a 61RS and a
beautiful white 356 Continental with factory sunroof. Porsches are
still very popular over here as this corner of the street attracted
more visitors than the local metal of American muscle cars just
around the corner. This included several Mustangs and large
Chevrolets, a few Woodies and even an old Ford tractor.
This year the Ferrari display included a 250 GT Lusso, a 250
GTE, a 330 GTC and a 246 GT Dino plus the 410 Superamerica
that was for sale at the RM Auction a few days later achieving
1.76 Mio $. Furthermore there was a stunning alloy bodied 275
GTB finished in stylish dark blue with tan interior and a wonderful
original unrestored 250 GTE originally delivered to Jacques
Swaters.
Unlike the previous year's this section was extended to sports
cars in general rather than a pure Ferrari display and so they were
joined by an ASA 1100, a Shelby Cobra, a Maserati 3500 GT and
the already mentioned Swallow Doretti and the Apollo.
The most curious car on show was the 1948 Davis Divan, an
American three-wheeler designed by Frank Kurtis who later
became known for the racers under his own name. The car was
very different from all on the market in this period and it is no
surprise that just about a dozen of them were build. At the
concours it was one of the crowd-pullers leaving a smile on every
face.
At about one o´clock in the afternoon the show was over and the
cars disappeared in all directions in the busy afternoon traffic
around Carmel.
For 2011 it is planned to bring the concours back to a full day in
the style of the previous editions. So this year might have been an
interim solution to keep it up on the calendar as it would be very
difficult to resurrect the event after a year off. Let's hope that this
efforts will succeed so that this year was not the swansong as it
was a welcome addition to the concours on the surrounding golf
courses.
Text & Images Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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