Monterey Car Week 2021: Normalizing the Exceptional

Monterey Car Week is my unabashed favorite time of the year. After a brief and solemn interlude in 2020, Car Week was back in full force this past August for 2021. I have long pondered what specifically it is that makes this week so special and almost surreal in its perfection. It comes down to the concept which forms the common thread of Car Week wonderment; normalizing the exceptional. There is no greater delight than being able to walk the quaint streets of Carmel and spot a Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder parked with a distinct sense of Italian sprezzatura on a street corner. But, not just the cars, for one mid-august week, Car Week transports the epicenter of global car culture to a stretch of Californian coast where you are just as likely to see Simon Kidston strolling past you on the Pebble Beach green or Alois Ruf having a meal with his family a few tables over from yours. Car Week is so near and dear to the hearts of the global car cognoscenti as it superimposes our own perfect, utopic, automotive dream world over reality.

2021’s Car Week coincided with many momentous occasions, including the 50th anniversary of what I think is the superlative supercar, the Lamborghini Countach. Like the wild and brutely forceful animals they truly are, the most exquisite Countach examples ranging from early LP400s to the evocatively flared LP5000 QVs traveled in packs in the Countach Rally with their biblical V12 engines reverberating in unison in a brilliant aural crescendo.

At the preeminent event of the week, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, two unique classes were dedicated, one to the finest examples of the Lamborghini Countach and the other to the inimitable Porsche 917. Arranged across the edge of the Pebble green, with the undulating tide and endless Californian seaside expanse providing the ultimate backdrop, was a veritable visual history lesson of the Countach with incredibly beautiful examples spanning the history of the halo car, including a 1 of 152 LP400 Periscopio.

Situated to the left was an equally amazing display of Porsche’s Le Mans stalwart. The 917 examples were organized to celebrate the 70 year anniversary of Porsche’s first win at Le Mans. Fittingly, included in the group of exceptional racing machines was the 1971 Le Mans overall winning 917 KH in its fetching Martini livery. Seeing the Porsche 917s assembled in fighting formation along the edge of the green composed a concurrence of dichotomy and connection of purpose and beauty. In a static setting the Porsche 917 is pure art, a work of beauty with intense visual drama. But, in many ways it defies its static placement with a visual presence in perpetual motion, unquenchably searching for triple-digit speeds on the Mulsanne.

Continuing with the essential principle of normalizing the exceptional, after a late arrival, the week began in earnest for me with the Tour d’ Elegance. The Tour d’ Elegance is an event I favor due to the wonderful experience of witnessing my automotive idols, normally relegated behind the deceptively impenetrable barrier of velvet ropes, driven with purpose on public roads. After a much worthwhile, but no less turbulent awakening at dawn, in the foggy environs of Pebble Beach there was a most auspicious feeling surrounding a gleaming line-up of cars normally found in the contents of our dreams. The smell of oil, gas, and wonderfully rich exhaust mixed with the aural opus of the revving of automotive history’s most hallowed engines created a truly unforgettable experience. Among the collection of legends included a Ferrari 250 GTO Series II, an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato, multiple Lamborghini Countach, a Jaguar C-Type, and even a 1600 horsepower Porsche 917/30 Can-Am Spyder about to be driven through Big Sur. Also driven was the amazing Ferrari 365 P Berlinetta Tre-Posti, a uniquely elegant three-seat concept of a mid-engine 12 cylinder Ferrari road car done by the virtuosic Pininfarina.

Whereas, driving such notable vehicles in the Tour is one way to use them as intended, the weekend’s Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is the ultimate expression of fulfilling the central purposes of such machines. In essence, a reenactment of motorsport’s greatest halcyon history with the most notable racing cars jockeying for the apex on Laguna Seca’s famous corkscrew. Seeing and hearing the snarling flat-sixes of Porsche RSRs, 934s, and 935s roar around Laguna Seca’s formidable corners, expelling sizable flames from their exhausts on the downshift normally represent the excitement car enthusiasts can only witness from a grainy historic photo from when these legends raced in period. And although the track is the epicenter of excitement, walking the paddocks is equally special as every nook and cranny is stuffed with a remarkable automobile, many not there to race. Parked precariously on a dusty slope was a Lancia Delta Integrale Evo, one of my dream cars that I had not previously had the chance to see in person. To the left was a Maserati Ghibli SS Spider next to a Ferrari Testarossa and a Porsche 993 GT2. Many fine racing machines lie in wait for their chance on the track, such as a Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage, an Alfa Romeo Corsa-Spec GTA, and a Blaupunkt livery Porsche 962C.

Car Week is filled with unique experiences such as these, each seemingly topping the next in terms of automotive wonderment. I stumbled upon Ferrari Concorso while walking the 1st and 18th fairways of Pebble Beach and this convenient coincidence resulted in one of my favorite events of the week. Each of the greatest cars ever produced by the Cavallino Rampante were represented by their most pristine example, bathed in the glow of late afternoon light worthy of an Italian fresco. This gathering of Ferraris demonstrates the scale of magnificence that is Car Week as anywhere else this would be an event worthy of its own occasion, but here at Pebble in mid-august it is an accoutrement. Some of my favorite models exhibited included a Pontoon-fender Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, a 1 of 2 Dino 206 SP, a 288 GTO, and a beautiful bucket-list sighting for me of the 250 LM.

Car Week is in essence a curation of all the elements car enthusiasts love about our hobby. It is the purest distillation of the cultural anthropology that surrounds automotive enthusiasm encompassing the many intrinsic connections cars have to history, design, and a grander subculture that has stemmed from a passion for them that I am proud to be a part of. I am lucky to have a birthday falling in August, thus having a permanent excuse to make the yearly pilgrimage to automotive mecca.