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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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