Monterey, 18th of August, 2016

Not few think that the Tour d´Elegance of the Concours is the highlight of the week when the cars could be seen in their natural habit, on the street. Once invented to proof that the cars can actually drive further than from the trailer to the show field and maybe once over the ramp the tour not only gives those not fortunate enough to get on the field on Sunday the opportunity to see a good portion of the cars but also for all cameras a memorable image in front of the Pacific. As mentioned several time during the last days the Tour had to be redesigned after the horrible forest fires down highway one towards Big Sur. With a shortened tour the start was rescheduled to 9am running a full hour behind the normal timetable. As the tour does not count for the concours this year it was not a surprise that only about half of the cars previously entered in the tour made it to the start in front of the Gooding & Company tent. Between 7am and 9am about 100 cars arrived to be released on the road in two groups instead of the usual three.

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A first glimpse at the cars revealed several special themes this year. A sole Ford GT40 represented the GT40 class with all major race winners of the Ferrari-beating Ford, but it was not just one Ford but the one that brought Ford the first overall victory in Le Mans.

More obvious was the Delahaye special display with several French coach built examples of the model range, mainly from Figoni & Falaschi and Chapron.

Ferrari once again has several classes including road and track and especially the race cars tend to surprise with new livery remembering one of their successful races as a re-sale red seems to be outdated. Cars in this class included a duo of 250 MM in open and closed version, a brown/beige SWB and a light-blue TDF. Better known is the 290 MM that just sold in December in New York to make its debut under the new ownership, joined by the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato that was sold at the same auction.

After the cars left the 17-miles drive and a loop through the hinterland the cars re-entered the grounds of Pebble Beach to drive along the water at 17-miles drive. Unfortunately the tour was changed once more during the last days so even the latest map from the press office was dated and not few were waiting at the wrong place. Fortunately word of the change spread fast among the colleagues so we were able to shot the first group at the shores, whereas most of the second group never made it past this point as a delay due to steep uphill drives and overheating classics made the police take a short cut on the way to Carmel for the lunch break. It was again very interesting to see how many cars had problems with even a short tour like this and some made it never out of the Pebble Beach grounds showing that many restorations just finished in time leaving not more chances to sort out the car. For that reason it was not a surprise that many cars did not take the risk as a technical problem and its fix might end up in long nights before the cars enter the lawn.

At the end all the cars made it back to their safe sports in the tents or transporters.

After visiting the two major auction previews of the top dogs in Monterey it was time for another two previews from Mecum and Bonhams. Mecum was the first auction house to start with their sales and so the daytime auction was already in full swing in the afternoon.

Bonhams on the other side will join in tomorrow afternoon during the Quail Lodge Motorsport Gathering. Set up near the lodge today preview was very well visited and several test drives saw a constant movement in the area. Highlight of the sale is certainly the Bugatti T35 GP that is expected to fetch between 7-9 million $ making this one of the top cars this weekend.

Tomorrow will be the Quail Lodge Motorsport Gathering, the most expensive garden party of the weekend. Judging from the delivery of the cars in the late afternoon one could look forward to a spectacular line-up and only the best food and wine might distract some from watching the classics on the field. Tomorrow evening RM will start their two days sale with the first half of their multimillion dollar display and not few are curious how the market will react as it seems that Monterey will again be a signpost for the market in the next months.


Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de