Carmel/Monterey, 14th of August, 2015
After the Pebble Beach Tour yesterday the attention went towards
the Quail Lodge for the annual Motorsport Gathering. Although
one of the most expensive events during the week with ticket
prices of 600 Dollar The Quail was again sold out well in advance.
Not only being known for the quality of cars but also for food and
atmosphere the Quail again attracted a lot of less car interested
people wandering through the field with a glass of champagne.
Several classes were set up the day before and early in the
morning before the gates were opened at 8am for the media and
10am for the general visitors, amongst them again the normal pre-
and post-war classes of sports and race cars, single marque
classes for Ferrari and Porsche 356 but also a special feature of
Le Mans Cars. Although announced as long tail cars it was more
a general class for the sports prototypes from the early 1970s to
the group C cars including a Ferrari 512 S, the Porsche 908/2 and
the Mazda 757. Ferrari was again particular strong with a Ferrari
275 GTB/4 NART Spyder, a lovely light blue 500 Mondial and the
matching Sweden colored 250 GTO but star was without doubt
the 340 Mexico. Still in original condition it was just given back its
Carrera Panamericana livery and won its class.
The Ferrari F50 got his own class celebrating 20 years with
several examples.
Porsche was displayed with an entire line-up of the type 356 from
early pre-A models to the latest C before the 911 was introduced.
Other cars of particular interest were the display of the Petersen
Museum in Los Angeles that featured one of the Ford GT40 MKII
as raced at Le Mans in 1966 together with the all new version of
the upcoming successor of the GT as already shown on
Wednesday at the McCall party.
The pre-war class was impressive with the Million Franc Delahaye
brought over by the Mullin collection and one of two Bugatti T55
on the field, its sister car was shown in Bugatti’s own line-up right
at the entrance.
Unfortunately the event also proved that free alcohol might lead to
rather nonchalant behavior as some visitors took a little bit too
much during the very hot sunny day as the glazing sun might
have done the rest.
After the Best of Show winner, the Alfa Romeo T33 Stradale was
announced the field cleared pretty fast as most of the cars were
leaving early into the weekend.
Heading towards Monterey downtown lead to the second day of
this year’s RM Sotheby´s auction. After the sale of the Pinnacle
Collection RM started with their “normal selection” of cars as
seen in previous years. Among today´s lot was another expensive
Ferrari, the unique 275/340S that sold at 7.25 million $ hammer
making this the second most expensive car of the evening only
surpassed by the Jaguar C-Type that fetched a healthy 12 million
$. It looked that the British cars were doing stronger today than
the Ferrari as not only the DB2/4 MKII DHC is now a million dollar
car but also the pre-war 2 Litre C-Type Speed Modell easily took
this barrier. On the other hand several Ferrari were left unsold
giving the impression that the market is settling a little bit after
the run of the previous years and some consigners still have to
realize that the intended accretion might not be as high as
expected. The next days will show as tomorrow not only RM
Sotheby´s have their last day with the Ferrari 250 TdF but also
Gooding & Company will join in for the first of their two-day sale at
the Pebble Beach grounds.
Text & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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