Sunday, 21th of August, 2011
The Monterey classic car week finally came to an end with the
highlight of the days, the Concours d´Elegance at the Pebble
Beach golf course. Many visitors found their way to the Pebble
Beach Lodge early in the morning to welcome the first cars just
after 6:30 at the entrance. In the next hours all the cars came in
and were directed to their spot by the many volunteers and
owners prepared their gems for the following judging. Featured
marque this year was Mercedes-Benz celebrating 125 years of
the automobile with classes ranging from the dawn of motor
racing over the supercharged ear both 6- and 8-cylinder to the
1950s icon, the 300 SL. Stutz was represented by 3 classes
including some very interesting racing cars.
Highly expected by the crowds was the 50th anniversary
celebration of the Ferrari 250 GTO with 22 of these rare and
expensive cars lined up at the beach front including the prototype,
the 250 GT Sperimentale from 1961 that based the legend.
After a busy day of judging the jury voted the Voisin C-25
Aerodyne of American collector Peter & Merle Mullin to become
Best of Show.
One had the impression that the concours became even bigger
that in recent years with more visitors every year. Even before the
spectators were allowed to come in there was a brisk ado on the
field. Unfortunately the weather just stayed the way it was all
week with misty overcast sky all the day.
After 12 hours on the field on headed over for the second day of
the official auction of Pebble Beach at Goodings. The first
highlight of the evening, the 1927 Mercedes-Benz S-type failed to
sell (still during the auction an after sale was negotiated and the
car found a new home for $5,25mio) but just minutes later a tough
bidder fight was seen on the Duesenberg Model J, the Whittell
Coupe. With a hammer price of 9.4 Mio $ plus commission it
became the second expensive car of the weekend after
yesterdays sale of the Ferrari 250 TR at the same place.
Text&Images Peter Singhof www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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