Monterey, 17th of August, 2014
Today the Monterey car week with lot of events on the lawn and
the race track came to an end with the highlight at the Pebble
Beach Golf Course. The most popular and important concours
d’Elegance in the whole world again attracted far more than 200
cars from all eras and countries to be awarded by an international
jury with the desired class and special awards. Several classes
included featured marques like Maserati in its Centenary (both
street and race cars), Ruxton with 16 of about 19 surviving
examples, the streamlined Tatras and most of all the highly
expected Ferrari 250 TR class. No less than 20 of the rare and
expensive 12 cylinder “Red Heads” were lined-up at the end of the
show field, the display did not just show the famous pontoon
fendered clients cars but also several of the works team cars
ranging from 1958 to the late 1961. Although these cars got most
of the attention that day and were surrounded by spectators all
the time the display of Maserati was not less interesting. Beside
the race cars making Maserati famous in time several coach built
post war sports cars with body by Zagato or Frua were lined up at
the sea. Further down the field Mercedes showed the recently
reconstructed straight-eight streamliner that matched the
streamlined class of Tatra close by. Also on its 100th jubilee year
was the 1914 French Grand Prix that was presented by the
winning trio of Mercedes-Benz, the Opel GP and a duo of
Peugeot.
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Featured coachbuilder this year was Darrin&Fernandez that
included the sensational duo of Rothschild Hispano-Suiza brought
over by Rob Lee from Nevada. When the J12 won its class and
was presented at the Best of Show nominee circle most of the
visitors were certain that they saw the winner but the big surprise
came at the end when finally for the first time after 1968 a
post-war car made it to the top. Breaking for the first time with the
tradition of a special coach built pre-war car taking the top laurels
it was Jon Shirley’s sensational Ferrari 375 MM with Scaglietti
Coupé body winning the most important award in the concours
circus. Fresh from a recent restoration the car convinced the
judges to get into a new century and finally award the design of
the 1950s on the most important marque of the last 50 years. As
could be seen in the auction results during the week the prancing
horse is way over everything else at the moment.
Unfortunately Gooding&Company could not match up with the
results from the last days and due to very high expectations not
few cars were left unsold, very much unlike the normal Gooding
sales results. At no less than 10 Million Dollar the Ferrari 250 GT
SWB remained below the reserve as did the Ferrari 365 P
Berlinetta Tre-Posti at 22.5 Million $. As also the superb Alfa
Romeo Tipo 256 Sportiva remained unsold it was the Ferrari 250
GT Series I Cabriolet that was the highest result of the day with
5.1 Million $ hammer price. After the realistic price for the 250
GTO sold the days before ... it looks like the market might slow
down a little bit in its race to ever new records. But certainly the
Ferrari market is still strong and with the next years featured
marque Ferrari it will be interesting to see the development in the
next 12 months to the Monterey Automobile Week 2015.
After the daily update from the Monterey Peninsula a more
detailed report on the most important events and auctions will
follow the next days.
Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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