Photos: Rolex/Kahn Media, Bugatti, Lamborghini & Charles Bradley
As the headline attests, Monterey Car Week is a lot to take in for a first timer, and for my maiden attendance I was extremely fortunate to have good folks from Rolex guide me through three days of Californian high-end luxury, classic, exotic, and racing car event heaven. Even at the hotel where I was staying, The Inn on Spanish Bay, the car lot was stacked with six-figure hardware; out front there was an ever-changing array of luscious exotica that had impressed the valets to give them pride of place.
Also encouraging was seeing the young age of the keen car spotters present, and their depth of knowledge was impressive, so maybe it’s not all doom and gloom about the next generation of car lovers after all?
First up on my itinerary was The Quail, A Motorsport Gathering, where a hugely impressive lineup of car manufacturers showed off their latest products – among some beautiful Concours-spec classics – across a lush golf course. My earliest appointment was at Lamborghini, where its stunning new ‘few-off’ Fenomeno was revealed amidst great applause, and I had the pleasure of an espresso with its Chief Technical Officer, Rouven Mohr, straight afterwards.
“It’s the fastest Lambo ever,” he beamed proudly. “From the lateral dynamics, you have a much more precise driving experience. And from longitudinal deceleration, you have much more braking performance. This car is not just about show and shine.”
Back to the show field, and the reveals came thick and fast. I counted 18 press conferences across four hours, and it felt almost impossible to keep up. A cool moment I did enjoy was seeing my old buddy Dario Franchitti, the three-time Indy 500 winner, helping to unveil Gordon Murray Automotive’s pair of new Special Vehicles Division ‘few-off’ products: the S1 LM, and the Le Mans GTR, of which – naturally! – 24 will be built (pictured below).
“The customer who commissioned this car, which is a bespoke design, has bought one of everything we’ve launched,” said Franchitti of the S1 LM, of which five will be built (pictured below). “He’s a very, very exacting person and he’s crystal clear on exactly what he wants from his ultimate car. It’s louder and more extreme than anything we’ve done before: a 4.3-liter V12, over 700 PS, and somewhere about 950 kilos.”
Another highlight later in the day was Bugatti’s public unveiling of its one-of-one Brouillard, a coach-built hypercar that combines modern W16 firepower with deeply personal heritage cues to the customer who commissioned it, via its new ‘Solitaire’ program.
Later that day I got to shoot the breeze with Bugatti’s President, Christophe Piochon, and he reveals how the current demand for bespoke cars is now driving the highest end of the market: “Customers can create cars that no one else will ever have,” he tells me. “That level of personalization is the ultimate luxury.”
Sunday’s curtain-closer, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, placed the emphasis on the world’s finest classic cars. But the OEMs were in force here again too, with Casa Ferrari adjacent to an entire fairway packed with Prancing Horses – its immense ‘Concorso Ferrari’ showcasing evolution and innovation through the decades, from historic racing cars like the 1948 166 Spyder Corsa to the very latest releases, including the 296 Speciale and all-new Amalfi, as well as the stunning F80 hypercar.
The ‘Concept Lawn’ showed off many new and future models, from Aston Martin’s Valhalla and Maserati’s MCPURA, through to Lexus’s as-yet-unnamed ‘Sports Concept’ and Bentley’s EXP 15 design notion.
The Formula 1 75th anniversary celebration was placed near the shoreline at Pebble Beach (including a Lancia D50, pictured below), just down the way from every generation of Rolls-Royce Phantom and – popping out! – BMW’s M1 art car which was hand-painted by Andy Warhol. Talk about a one-of-one, you could see the great man’s brush strokes.
For me, the most impressive day of the weekend was Saturday’s Rolex Monterey Reunion – which I’d put up on a pedestal with Goodwood’s Revival Meeting. I’ve already written about the fantastic IROC celebration, which had cameoed at The Quail as drivers took part in a parade from Laguna Seca a day previously. But seeing these cars pushed towards their limits on track made all the difference, rather than slowly moving or being static display items. And knowing that the likes of Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Dario Franchitti, Scott Pruett and Mark Martin were behind the wheel only made it more special.
Other on-track displays included two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato at the wheel of Nigel Mansell’s Formula 1 1986 Williams-Honda FW11, and that brought back a lot of memories as it trailed black smoke while Taku smashed his way through the gears and up the hill from our vantage point near the final turn. Following at a respectful distance was Zak Brown in Niki Lauda’s stunning 1984 World Championship-winning McLaren MP4/2.
The static collection of 33 F1 cars that Ellen Bireley had organized in the paddock was entertainingly diverse, from the 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR right through to Lando Norris’s 2024 McLaren MCL38 race winner. My favorites were the 1986 Benetton-BMW (pictured below, it's the wallpaper on my iPhone’s lock screen) and Andrea de Cesaris’s Alfa Romeo from ’82 – if only to finally see for myself the slight difference between its Marlboro colors to that of the McLarens on show, which was so obvious on the TV pictures back in the day.
Back on track, there was the Mario Andretti Trophy race (for F1 cars built between 1966-85) to enjoy, a field topped by Chris MacAllister’s fabulous ex-Lauda Ferrari 312 T2 (pictured below, chasing a Tyrrell).
As I wandered the paddock further afield, I spied Tom Kristensen, the man who’s won more editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans than any other, taking in the majesty of the dominant All American Racers Eagle MkIII-Toyota IMSA GTP. “I drove a lot of racing cars in period, not this one, but I have to say that the Toyota TS010, the Group C car which I raced in Japan, I would love to have that car,” he confides, before our chat meanders to whether he’d ever buy a road-going supercar. “Actually, I’m going to get the last Audi RS6 Performance – through my job as a racing driver I’ve had lots of these great cars, but now I’ve finally bought one! That’s a supercar for me; one that I can put my bikes in for everywhere that I go.”
That iconic Toyota was just one of the highlights of the IMSA GTP/Group C-style cars that raced for the Hurley Haywood Trophy, others being the rotary-engined, Le Mans-winning Mazda 767B (its scream would make a Banshee proud, and whose sister car, the RX792P, sadly broke down early on) and Bruce Canepa’s gigantic Nissan NPT-90.
In the ‘tiddlers’ touring car paddock for the Dan Gurney Saloon Car Trophy race, I found Jenson Button, the 2009 Formula 1 World Champion, beaming about his morning’s victory in the Alfa Romeo Guilia Junior GT that he co-owns with Maz Fawaz, Singer’s Chief Strategy Officer. “On track, they might look slow, but behind the wheel you’re having an absolute blast,” Button told me (below). “Sliding around at 100 mph, revving to 8,000 rpm, no power steering, no traction control, you’re using the clutch all the time, heel-and-toe downshifts – it’s pure, mechanical racing. You feel everything.”
Jenson was also racing a Porsche, and enjoyed a practice jaunt in one of the IROC cars – while still finding the time to dash to a jeweler to resize his new Rolex Land-Dweller that he was proudly wearing as he was Grand Marshal for the event. And a Brawn BGP001 of the ilk that he drove to glory was also part of the F1 display, not that he needed reminding: “The great thing is that I always have a documentary about my championship year that I can watch whenever I want!”
Among the rows and rows of awnings, you could discover more and more cars that maybe you’d only ever seen on a scratchy VHS video, or photos in Racer or Autosport magazines. And another highlight of the weekend was getting a guided trackside tour at Laguna’s signature Corkscrew. Getting to spend 10 minutes in the photographer’s stand during a race was truly magical, as the sun finally broke through the Southern Californian mist.
I’ve watched contemporary IndyCars and IMSA sportscars from the spectator banks here, something I’d recommend to anyone, but being that little bit closer and getting an elevated view of the first apex to the huge drop below really put a new perspective on the incredible challenge.
And that was something that stayed with me; while you can stand and marvel at the incredibly rare, and never-raced, Ferrari F50 GT1 that won the Quail’s Best in Show, or the amazing “Tulipwood Torpedo” (a 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C Nieuport-Astra Torpedo, the owners of which received a Rolex Perpetual 1908, below) Pebble Beach Concours victor, seeing them putter (or in some cases requiring a push) up the ramp to collect their trophy wasn’t quite the same as seeing them in all their glory.
Watching Group C prototypes duel to the checkered flag, or witnessing pre-World War II single-seaters dance through one of the world’s greatest corners, were unforgettable sights. Moments like these are what made the Rolex Monterey Reunion my absolute highlight of an incredible three days.
