Monterey, 13th of August
For many years now the Car Week at the Monterey Peninsula
before the final concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach is the
centre of the classic car world in the middle of August. Over the
last decades an ever increasing number of shows, auctions and
race days on the nearby Laguna Seca race track attracted
enthusiasts, collectors and classic car dealers from all over the
world to California to enjoy the largest gathering of blue chip cars
imaginable. With the booming market of the last years the
auctions became more and more important taking over most of
the weekends evening activities starting Thursday with the
Bonhams Maranello Rosso sale that got most of the headlines to
following days. With the previews starting early in the week most
of the collectors arrive already on Monday as one could see by
the raising prices of the available hotel rooms and a lot of
business meetings are held during private receptions and parties
in rented houses in the area in the evenings.
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One of the few social evening events established over the last 23
years is the annual McCall Motorworks Revival at the Jet Center
of the local airport. Not purely dedicated to cars like most of the
other daily activities the party features cars, private jets, good
food and drinks making this more a see and to be seen than a
pure car event. Despite heavy ticket prices the party is always
very well visited and the elegant dressed ladies and gentlemen
are welcomed with a glass of champagne after collecting their
tickets at the will call. Spread out over two hangars since last
year the display spans a large outdoor area with several historic
war birds and modern Lear jets shown by the various
manufacturers to the potential clients. In between the planes
several cars are placed as shown on the other events ranging
from museums cars like the ones from the Petersen Automotive
Museum, auction cars like the small display of Mecum, private
collector cars and the latest supercars.
Small groups with special themed displays included a Ford
line-up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mustang including
the Mustang 1 concept brought over by the Henry Ford Collection.
Unlike the production cars that should follow two years later this
one-off features a light alloy two-seater body rather than the
coupé body that made the pony car famous. Parked in front of the
Northern American P51D Mustang this was one of the major
attraction of the party. Just right to it the Lotus 56-3 and a special
Corvette span the bow to the jets as both cars are very rare
examples of turbine powered four wheelers.
But not just classic cars were on display as several supercars
were shown by Ferrari, Pagani and Lamborghini in their own
booth; smaller manufacturers included the Hennessy Venom or
Panoz Esperante. Mercedes-Benz and Toyota featured one of the
new concept cars and especially the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision
Gran Turismo was very prominently displayed on a spacious
wooden panelled platform attracting a lot of interest. Porsche on
the other hand was presented by some private owned icons of
their long racing history ranging from a tiny 550 A Spyder over the
last street legal prototype type 906 to the legendary 917. The car
in the famous blue-orange Gulf livery came fresh from a splendid
restoration by Gunnar Racing for its owner Bruce Canepa and
won the Concours on the Avenue the day before on the Ocean
Avenue in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Chassis 917-004 started as a Langheck factory car for the
homologation including an entry at the NĂĽrburgring before being
sold to John Wyer as Kurzheck and raced in the Gulf Colours.
After an accident in Brands Hatch 1970 the car was repaired
using a new chassis (017) whereas the original chassis 004 went
back to the factory. This was not an uncommon in this era to
prevent sales taxes on a new car. As the new chassis 017 went
on to race under the number 917-004 the crashed chassis was
repaired and resold by Porsche under the number 917-017 that
became available after the renumbering of the former. This
repaired chassis was then used in historic racing before ending
up in the hands of Canepa, today it is restored to the
configuration of its Brands Hatch entry including the race number
9. This car was the talk of the week as it is rumoured to be under
offers in the region of 20 Million $ so one could get an impression
what the price range for the car from the Le Mans movie of Steve
McQueen would have been that was intended to be auctioned at
Gooding this week but that was withdrawn. But even without this
917 the line-up on the various sales was spectacular this year
and at the evening at McCall´s it was still uncertain where the
development would go over the next days but today we know that
even with this oversupply of great cars in one week the market
goes still strong and was able to absorb most of the high profile
cars within the expected price range.
As the sun went down the interest turned more towards the
champagne, the caviar and the oysters to finish a long day
starting with several auction previews and a side trip to the race
track where the official group shot for this years featured marque
Maserati was done in the afternoon. The McCall´s Motorworks
Revival was again a great evening-up to the hectic and busy days
that should follow.
If you want to attend the next year’s Motorworks Revival by
yourself check out www.mccallevents.com for further information.
Report & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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