Monterey Auction Action Begins!

Monterey is already a beautiful place, but throw together nearly a dozen automotive events into one long weekend, and Monterey becomes even more beautiful with lush automotive scenery.

At least for the weekend, Priuses along Central California’s coast cities have been supplanted by what looks like the United States’ entire population of red Ferraris and black-and-gold Hertz Mustangs. And that’s a wildly cool thing.

I started off the Monterey weekend registering for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and at several of the auctions. While getting all of the press credentials out of the way, I had a chance to check out some of the sweet machines already at these events. Here’s what I like so far:

Concours d’Elegance

-The Blackhawk Expo was already raring to go. The expo was set up with loads of Classics (including the Judkins coupe I like so much) and several really sweet street rods. I was also impressed with a 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Seville with quadruple headlamps. Richie Clyne and Don Williams of the Imperial Palace Auto Collections and Blackhawk Collection were tearing around the grounds on a Duesenberg chassis, and obviously had a good time doing it!

Russo & Steele auction

There’s lot of great muscle and 1950s cars at Russo & Steele’s sweet spread, but the event’s kickers are a 60-mile Boss 429 (yup, that’s less than 100 original miles!), the First Shelby King of the Road and a 1957 Eldorado Brougham in black – the best color to dress these suits. There’s also a resto-modded 1937 Lincoln-Zephyr coupe with a modern powertrain but a stock look. All tasty, and all available.

RM Auctions

Again, some of the best of the best are presented here. Surprisingly, there were lots of street rods in the RM Auction area, including the Khougaz 1932 Ford roadster featured earlier in Old Cars Weekly, and the Tommy Lee roadster with the Cord-style front end, soon to be featured in Ken Gross’ “Speaking of Hot Rods” column. There were also several historial race cars, including a Penske 1969 Camaro, which was rumbling around RM Auction’s outdoor display while I walked around, and not one but two Matranga-style Mercs going up for auction.

Gooding auction:

I like Classic Cadillacs and Duesenbergs, but the coolest things I saw at the Gooding auction were a six-cylinder early-1930s Alfa Romeo roadster in unrestored condition and a likewise original Ferrari transporter that appears to date to the 1960s. These finds were so sweet, I almost missed the V-16 Cadillac aerodynamic coupe!

This is all just the start. The finale will be Sunday, during the concours, but before that happens, there’s a lot to look at every where you turn. I’ll keep you posted!