EP13: Senna’s Excalibur, FrankenFerrari, Prius to Daytona, Lambos in Miami, “a Plastic Surgeon by trade” Cadaverous Collectors and three black Mercedes at Pebble Beach

Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.

• A Florida Roadtrip;
• A Prius Digression;
• J impressed by hybrid torque and 50mpg;
• Prius not impressed by J’s driving;
• Daytona Track Tour is worthwhile to see the banking’s steepness from the actual track; J drives where Dale Earnhardt met his end;
• J’s recent Sprint Car research project – Midget racing in the bay area in the late 1940s/50s
• Hall of Fame Museum at Daytona;
• Campbell’s Bluebird;
• Marshall Teague’s “Fabulous” Hudson Hornet;
• Automotive sites in Daytona Beach – Smokey Yuinick’s shop, Marshall Teague’s shop
• Early Nascar and the rise of the SuperSpeedway;
• The North Turn Restaurant
• VINWiki Curated Lamborghini in Miami
• The Green Diablo Jota in the Kitchen
• 1981 Lamborghini Countach – the Monaco Grand Prix Pace Car
• The Estrella Warbirds Museum
• California History – Hunter-Gatherer societies and aeroplane graveyards
• – the most awesome sprint car collection
• Motorhead – Deadmen Tell No Tales;
• Pebble Beach 2023 –
• Structured a different way – first time in a decade didn’t watch the start of the tour;
• Stayed in Soledad – good roads but the distance an issue;
• The People Of Pebble Beach, and the McLaren Millenial crowd;
• If last year was McLarens this year it was lots of Rolls Royces;
• Familiarity makes them “less off-puttingly ostentatious”
• J has made his peace with the Cullinan
• The Yellow Crypto Lambo
• J is cynical about Audighini’s baked in understeer
• Iron Maiden – Sun and Steel
• Big day at RM; Lancia LC2
• Manowar – And The Gods Made Heavy Metal
• 8 litre Bentley
• Siata
• RMs Barn Find Exhibit and the 1954 Mondial
• Exodus – Metal Command
• JDM at Pebble; but who are Spoon?; The white 90’s tuner Civic as a classic car;
• Are drift cars attaining collectibility?
• Ratt – Dance
• Seeing the Quail show at the end of the day, while the cars are being loaded
• How Daimler and Benz came to merge in 1926 and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, designed by Porsche
• Type o Negative – We Hate Everyone;
• Monterey Historic Races from Laguna Seca; Group C cars enjoyable from the Corkscrew; The build-up of Turns 3,4,5,and 6 – a rhythm and style which British club circuits lack. All like Copse Corner at Silverstone – simple fast, challenging; J loves Historic Formula 1; RIP Phil Reilly, Ford/Cosworth DFV Guru
• The Ragtime Racers,Classic car auctions as Performative Theatre
• Kreator – Grinder
• J’s new logistics for Pebble ‘23; the show itself remains the Best Car Show. But only until all the people arrive.
• A Beautifully Curated Balance of Cars. J particularly enjoyed Senna’s 1988 McLaren Formula 1 car. A fresh appreciation for Daimler Benz as the featured marque.
• Prong – Who’s Fist?
• J’s tribute to Don Williams, the man who wanted to “touch every car”, seller of the first $1m car, and the first $10m car; the origins of the Blackhawk Museum; Don said “I don’t like crap”, but J does!
• Blackhawk Museum, jewelry store display case vs. J’s desire to tell rich stories around artifacts
• J appreciates Don for elevating cars to antiques
• Dope – You Spin Me
• 3 Awesome Black Mercedes – #1 – The Trossi Mercedes SSK owned by Ralph Lauren, J’s Best in Show, image car for this episode
• J’s tour for some Mercedes Benz visitors leading on how the concours works; pleasingly ended the tour on the winning car, #2 a black Mercedes 540k; 800 miles in two weeks in #3 my black ‘02 Mercedes E55 – great old car despite a cracked windshield;
• Cadaverous Collectors and the cars of Pebble as Avatar
• J’s favourite YouTuber of the moment – Car UK

[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.

Good day, good morning, good afternoon. It’s John Summers. Um, and in a continued exploration of this new way of storytelling, um, I’m going to record this episode without Mark. So, uh, yes, because he was there just as a foil, wasn’t he? Not really, but I’ve done a lot of stuff recently and I thought, you know what, I’m just gonna Put together a [00:01:00] script and and then talk.

I don’t know why I feel the need to. Explain to you, the hapless listener, why I’m explaining to you how I’m structuring what I’m doing. Why do I feel the need to do that? Um, I did a road trip in Florida. Um, this was a couple of weeks ago now, but Pebble Beach has come since. And I’m like, you know what, talk about this Florida road trip, uh, before you, uh, before you talk about Pebble.

So here we are. Um, had a Prius as the rental car, not one of these new ones would have been fabulous if it was one of the new ones would have been really interested to try that, but as it was, it was the one that had the sort of insect kind of face and and the sort of sedan like rear, um, to it. So to my eye, not a displeasing looking looking car.

[00:02:00] Um, yeah. Did not like the second generation of Prius, the most common kind, found that most unpleasant to drive. This one seemed to have a, a more pleasant kind of, of driving dynamic in, in general. Um, you know, by that I mean, you know, it’s, it was, it was, you know, the electrification, the torque was nice, you know, the hybrid helped with that.

Um, it didn’t have intrusive, like, regenerative braking. Um, it’s hard to notice that at all. Um, I’m not the most gentle of drivers and, and it, in fact, it kept telling me that when you turn the motor off, it tells you the score, it admonished me for having aggressive use of the throttle, advised me to modulate the throttle more.

Um, patronizing. Who wants a car that does that? [00:03:00] What kind of automotive engineer thinks that’s a good idea? But whatever. I, after a bit, you can just sort of tune that out. It also, it also, I think if you’re speeding, I think the, the instruments, they sort of go a sort of angry red, like, tap, tap, you’re speeding, rather than, you know, the normal, like, you know, eco green, or.

It blew or, or, or whatever. I may be, I may be wrong in that recollection, but certainly the instrument seemed to, to change color and, and this car, the car didn’t seem to give me a high score if I’d been on the highway and it set the cruise above whatever the speed limit was. So it was very flat. It’s, it makes Lincolnshire look, look hilly.

Um, a, a neighbor who I mentioned that to, um, told me a story about how, uh, when there used to be lots of auto wrecking yards in Florida, that they were the tallest buildings, uh, in, in sight. And I, I [00:04:00] was, was thinking about that because, uh The boy and I, on our road trip, we visited Daytona, and he was like, Let’s go to the Speedway, and I was like, Well, really?

But there was a museum nearby, which is a Hall of Fame, and as we got close, I realized that the two were actually adjoining the Speedway and, uh, the Hall of Fame are sort of the same thing, and the Hall of Fame had interesting exhibits by, by all accounts, so I thought, you know, I would, uh, it seemed worth our while.

worth our while going. Well, when we arrived, um, they were still selling visit, uh, they were still selling tickets for the visit to the track that you could do. So, uh, Ollie and I luckily got two of the last five tickets and were able to, uh, to, to, to do the track tour, which, uh, Basically involved, um, this [00:05:00] big F 250 towing, kind of an open trailer with benches on, like a railway carriage open trailer, and then a roof over the top of it.

So it didn’t really protect you from the heat. It shaded you a little bit. It didn’t really protect you from the heat. And as we drove up the hill onto the track, uh, the guy asked people, the tour guide was like, Is anybody From Florida and some people were from Florida and he said, well, uh, for you people out of town, you won’t need this explanation, but, but for Floridians, this here is a ill, this is as we climbed up the banking to go into the infield of the circuit.

Um, not very amusing, the telling of, of, of Florida, I think, as, uh, so, so the Prius, um, I, I liked it. I liked that it was nippy. I liked that they could keep up with traffic. I like the fact that [00:06:00] when you were in traffic, if you stabbed the throttle, the electrification was enough to be like a, a sort of monster turbo.

Um, yeah, so I, I really found, uh, a lot to, to like about it. Um, you know, obviously it’s Florida and, and, you know, you’re in a rental car, so you’re not like, you know, I wasn’t like exploring the limits of the handling or anything as, as ridiculous as that. Um, it was adequate. Um, it did better than 50 mpg, um, and I really want to underscore that that’s really noticeable when you drive when most, because most of the stuff I drive does less than half that.

So it’s very noticeable just how, you know, it, it didn’t, you know, you didn’t need to fill it up much. And when I filled it up, a full tank was less. Much less than I was expecting not least because gas was less in in Florida than [00:07:00] than it is in California But you know bottom line is I was really struck by how you know in the past I’ve said that I felt like Tesla moved the iteration of what the automobile was on, and I felt like, you know, Lucid has moved it on again, and arguably Faraday Future.

I’m kind of keen to try one to understand how I feel about that, but I feel like there has been this generational movement. Where does the Prius fit in there? I’m far closer to the Tesla than you would I would have anticipated before I drove one. I’m far further away from, um, my 2016 Fiesta ST. Um, certainly a different generation from the, you know, 02 E55 AMG Mercedes I have or the 01 Mustang V8.

So, um, really it was interesting from that point of view and interesting that even a keen, enthusiastic motorist like [00:08:00] me should quite like the, uh, So just segue back to the track. Um, to be honest, the visit was kind of naff. Like we went to Victory Lane, it was too hot to do anything. I didn’t want to take pictures of me or Oli in Victory Lane.

You know, I, that was like blah, whatever for me. But what was cool was we went around the, apron of the track, we entered on the back stretch just before, um, the entrance to turn three, and then we went through, on, on the apron, we went through turn three. And when we crossed over onto the track, you could look towards You know, up the backstretch towards the exit of turn two and get an impression of how steep the bank was and the answer is bloody steep and you [00:09:00] could look the other way and you could actually see how steep the banking is on the entry of turn three and as we drove through it you could see how steep it was and then of course you come through turn four.

And exit there. So, you know, I never would have thought the, you know, if you go to Daytona for me, it would have been important to, to visit, you know, the place where, where my favorite NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. You know, turn the wheel for the last time kind of thing. It would have been nice to go to that spot to feel like you’d been there.

And we moved across that spot, um, in a V8 powered vehicle. So, you know, that was, that was a cool thing to, to have done. Um, I mean, I guess the other memorable thing was it thrashed with rain and we were in a part of the wagon where we got completely wet, but that was fine. We didn’t really, Ollie and I didn’t really mind that.

Um, we went up in the grandstands and had a look at that. The [00:10:00] seats are all multicolored nowadays, so that when the camera pans past, it looks like the crowd’s, the grandstands are full, whereas in reality, they’re, they’re kind of empty. And one wonders when the tour guide points that out to you, you just wonder about the future of, of NASCAR as a mass market sport.

Um, you know, I’m. Digressing here now, but this is the, the point of, of these, I guess, you know, I’ve been doing some research into, uh, sprint car racing in the, in the Bay Area, or what they used to call in the immediate post war period. Right, it’s Editor John here, just to say that the tangential link here is that NASCAR viewing figures are declining, precipitously so, and indeed these midges I’ve been studying, the same happened.

They had this massive Booming popularity in the late forties [00:11:00] and then by the early fifties, mid fifties, it was totally gone. Um, big car racing because the big cars were spring, what we now call spring cars. They were in contrast to the midgets, which were the same kind of car, but produced to a much smaller scale.

And these would race on, you know, sub quarter mile. Um, ovals, dirt ovals, sometimes paved, sometimes board tracks with all the, you know, attendant, what they used to call in period, thrills and spills, but what you and I would call a safety nightmare in, in terms of, you know, cars tangling wheels and jumping up and, and, you know, wheels hitting people on the head and cars turning over without, um, roll bars and, and all of that.

So, um, uh. This is the challenge of doing it on my own, you see, I lose my train of thought here. Luckily I can edit [00:12:00] myself. I thought, why not bother? That’s really the authentic thing, isn’t it? Is to not, is to not bother. So look, I’ve just woken my phone up and revisited the thing. And I was talking about the Daytona track visit, wasn’t I?

So we went to the museum as well. Um, the Hall of Fame museum. Um. I’m not that imaginatively laid out, I would say, if I was being a museum critic, but that seems very snobby and pretentious to have approached it from that perspective. I was mostly excited by the bluebird being there. Um, it’s Campbell’s 274 or 282 or whatever that, that bluebird.

Um, really a great looking car and awesome to see it there alongside, you know, Marshall Teague’s, you know, fabulous Hudson Hornet. Um, I guess I didn’t know that Marshall Teague had Smokey Eunuch [00:13:00] as a mechanic on those fabulous Hudson Hornets right at the, at the beginning. And, and that ties up nicely with a piece of history that Ollie and I, um, I’d done myself more recently, but I’d sort of showed Ollie, you know, here is the site of where Smokey Unix’s shop was.

Here is the site where the fabulous Hudson Hornets, which he knows of as Doc Hudson from the Cars movie, um, voiced by Paul Newman, the sort of mentor figure for, uh, uh, the main character in the first couple of movies. Um, You know, these dealers, these garages were close to each other. Um, and you may or may not know Smokey Eunuch’s place.

Um, when Smokey died or retired or whatever, it sat empty. Then it burned in 2011 and now it’s completely gone. It’s just Florida [00:14:00] marshland. Again, there’s a street called Smokey Eunuch. There’s a, um You know, smoking unit way. There’s some nice condos. There’s, uh, there is, uh, a plinth and an information thing now, which was, uh, which was pretty cool.

But as so often with American history, hot rod history, um, the actual archaeology has gone. Absolutely. And completely. Um, Marshall Tee Garage is still there. Um, they’re doing their business of, of, um, you know, doing jet ski trailers with chrome wheels and lifting golf carts and, and good for them. You know, uh, yeah, I, you know, Daytona Beach is Daytona Beach.

Um, you know, some German friends of ours visited there too. And, and, you know, we’re disappointed by, by what it looks like, but, you know, this is a seaside town that’s only developed in the last 30 or 40 years. So it’s [00:15:00] inevitably going to more look more like a, a terrible resort on some place. Terrible.

Resort patronized by British people somewhere in the Mediterranean. It’s inevitably going to look more like that or more like Las Vegas than it is, uh, you know, uh, the kind of old city that, that we’re used to. And if I tell you that one of these Germans, um, you know, spend a lot of time living in Cologne, you’ll understand why, um, she maybe struggled a little bit with the, with Florida.

Um, yeah, not knocking Florida, just it’s a young place. So young architecture. So guess what? The cars are history and, and not for nothing, just pivoting back to the speedway, my God, the banking steep, right? And, and I just want to underline that, that, you know, when. With it, reading between the lines of NASCAR history, a lot of drivers, when the super speedways first came along, were frightened of them.

So in other words, Darlington’s one, if you’re [00:16:00] used to wheeling a car around under a hundred miles an hour on a dirt oval with a car sliding around, the moment there’s pavement, the car’s sliding less, you can run much faster. The speeds are just much, much higher. That’s a different kind of motorsport, arguably, and it began with, with Darlington.

Um, and I think, uh, certain drivers did well there and certain drivers didn’t. And I think, you know, we, we think of, um, you know, uh, uh, Buck Baker as, as Darlington, you know, here’s somebody who wasn’t afraid to hold the pedal to the metal on, on pavement all the time. Um, I think the feeling of Florida was the feeling in Florida when the Speedway was first built was, was even even more so.

Um, A1A Beachfront Avenue. We remember the line from old, uh, Vanilla Ice. Um, The scenes [00:17:00] of Daytona when they were racing there in, in the fifties when it was on the beach. And then they make the turn up onto the paved road. And the paved road is barely wide for two cars. And you are looking at like Turner and Weatherly and um, convertible 57 Chevys doing a buck 40 next to each other with, you know, barely room to get a cigarette paper in between them kind of thing.

That era of, of racing. Um. Uh, it’s mostly condos now, the beach is still open, it’s hard packed, um, it hurt Ollie’s feet running on it, which shows you how great a surface it is for racing, shows you why Seagrave came there, why, um, you know, uh, uh, Campbell came there, so we understand. Why it was a gray surface.

That was was interesting. Um, the site of the North turn, there’s a restaurant there called the North turn. So the actual place on the beach where you see this film of [00:18:00] them, of these, you know, jalopies, that’s what they called them even at the time, isn’t it? You know, under steering on the sand 100 miles an hour and then uh, Yeah.

bumping up onto the pavement and, and speeding on down the road and sometimes like overturning and crashing into cars that had already crashed. All of this kind of film that you see from NASCAR history. That piece of road’s still there, um, and I’ve got a little bit of film there. I think it is the original pavement, um, just immediately after the turn, um, on by a, by a car park where we parked up just before it’s all been built up.

into it to condos. So, um, interesting that the history is still there. Um, interesting how they’ve chose to preserve it, package it, tell the story. Um, Olly and I had fun. Um, The other thing that we did in, in Miami, um, and, and this is just, uh, uh, [00:19:00] an interesting, uh, interesting thing was, uh, through Vimwiki, um, I encountered this guy, John Tamerlian, um, forgive me if I’ve mispronounced his name, I probably have, um, either way the bloke is an eat, slim, drink, um, Lamborghinis.

It’s Lamborghinis. I’ve said this to some of my colleagues at Pebble Beach and they, I could see them mentally rolling their eyes, but, but this is the truth of what they do. And they had cars on the lawn at Pebble. And I can’t underline how cool that was to, to, to see. Curated, or online we are curated, curated Lamborghini.

It is Lamborghinis done with a Pebble Beach eyes, the Lamborghini, it’s, it’s the Pebble Beach attention to detail and, and posterity and, and the stories that he tells on VinWiki are awesome. I love the, the, the stories. Um, [00:20:00] so he tells one story about a rare color, a green Diablo that was in some Japanese guy’s kitchen.

And it was there for years and years and years. Um, he, like, bought the car, he restored it, or whatever, blah de blah, I can’t remember the full story. When we were at the place, I saw the car in the workshop. The workshop, the square footage of the workshop is probably bigger than the square footage of the showroom.

At the showroom, the cars were packed in. And I mean, it was impeccable quality cars. It was, it was literally, like I picked out for Mark Gamy, the, the yellow Diablo sv, but for myself, a black count, 5,000 QV wing, delete. Just really, really great cars, great colors. Just presented in a [00:21:00] superlatively. Good way.

In the best environment for, for Lamborghinis. ’cause Miami, my. God, there is a vibe there and my God, Lamborghinis fit it. I saw more of them than, than ever, you know, never did a purple Urus actually seem like applicable. But, you know, when you’re on Miami beach and, you know, my word, I’m not going to talk about the people.

My word, Lamborghinis actually fitted. So a word on one would hope. to Merlion came across in person as he does in in the video and and when we rocked up he was there I just rocked up with my family it was 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning or something and he was there he was selling the car I didn’t try and interact with him he was moving around because he had a customer he was selling the car did the customer want a test drive the car was running they were getting cars loaded [00:22:00] for for Pebble I saw Um, the, the car, one of the cars they had on the lawn at Pebble was a, uh, Countach that had been the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix Pace car.

Um, I saw that car, you know, sitting outside waiting to be loaded. Um, I just love it when enthusiasts, when people who love cars, are like enthusiasts, when the passion is, is authentic. That’s what’s great about Pebble Beach generally. Um, that’s what’s great about the car hobby generally. Love the, the, the curated and, and Tamerlian specifically kind of embody.

So that was fun. Um, also went to a super cool museum. Um, forgot to mention this when was talking about the road trip, the Death Valley, uh, 124 degrees in a pickup truck with no AC. Well, the end of that and an eight year old boy. Is that child [00:23:00] endangerment? I’m not sure that it is. I just didn’t criminalize myself.

I didn’t do it intentionally. No. Yeah. And anyway, um, I’ve just, I can, I’m, I may not trim that out. Um,

At the end of our F 250 road trip, um, we stopped at a museum in Paso Robles, and the symbol of this museum is the Estrella Warburgs Museum, and the symbol is a P 38, so I naturally assumed that they would have P 38s there, so these are this twin spar. silver plane, little bit similar. I think of them in the same area as the Mosquito, where it’s basically as a fighter, but it’s got two engines and it’s got twice the power, twice the speed, awesome to fly.

This was a Pacific theater only thing. Um, I’ve never seen one in the flesh. Um, they don’t have one. They use the symbol, but they [00:24:00] don’t have one. So that’s a bit odd, but you know, that a phantom F4 and, and I was quite happy walking around looking at, uh, uh, uh, these, these planes baking in the sun. And I would just say, this is a theme of California that in California, the history.

Is the history as you receive it, like the brown signs, the brown signs are going to be the site of some native American people like a hunter gatherer people and the variety of their culture is awesome and exciting, but it’s from like, uh, uh, it feels to me like from thousands of years ago, isn’t of course it’s not, it’s only from a couple of hundred years ago here in California, but in, in European again.

Terms in Western civilization terms, this is, uh, this is a people who live before, you know, the Iliad. It’s that kind of, you know, hunter gatherer kind of, of, of [00:25:00] people and lifestyle and, and just, and just way of being. You’ve got that contrasted with all of these aircraft graveyards. With which is like Cold War relics.

So even around San Francisco, you’ve got these missile Nike missile sites everywhere that were stationed to see off I don’t know if it was seeing off the Japanese or seeing off the Russians or or or maybe somebody in between I’ve no No idea, but it’s just a testament to, uh, uh, our paranoia in some ways.

But Hey, if you like looking at old planes, there’s loads of cool old plane museums on the West coast. And, and so we looked at that and thought that was pretty cool. And we wandered inside and they had some military vehicles as well. And then we wandered into another hall and all of a sudden it was the most amazing sprint car and midget collection I’d ever seen.

It was, was like, it was like, I felt like the [00:26:00] same time as I did when I stumbled into a church in Sicily, just because I had nothing better to do at that particular moment. I was waiting for Dana, who was having a cooking class. Um, and, and there was a Caravaggio, the, the altarpiece. Frescoed onto the wall of the church was a Caravaggio.

I was, the church was only open because I happened, because, you know, it was being cleaned that morning or something, I can’t remember that. But I got talking to the old lady cleaning it, and she was like, I was looking at the altarpiece being like, God damn, that’s like Really awesome. And she was like, it’s Caravaggio.[00:27:00]

Pebble Beach, 2023. What to say? Um, Well, I got back 48 hours ago. So it’s fresh in my mind. That’s the most important thing. Um, I think the headline is that after a decade of structuring the event in pretty much the same way, this year I structured it a different way. So for the first time in at least a decade, I didn’t go to the Thursday morning start of the tour.

Um, and that was really because I was just busy. I’d been doing other things and, and, and, you know. Um, my son was with me, he’s young, was tired. I was just like, you know what, I’m not going to wake him up and force the structure that way. And, and it just meant that I did everything at a different time in, in a And in a different place and, [00:28:00] and, uh, that was fine.

Um, for the first time in a long time, I also didn’t stay with a friend of mine who runs the, the, the docent program. And, and that meant that it was, was structured in a, in a different kind of way. Um, so, um. I stayed in this place, um, Soledad, which is down the freeway, uh, about an hour. And on the face of it, it’s like, well, why would you even bother?

Because it, given it’s only, you know, two and a half hours home to San Francisco, but there’s a long, there’s a big difference between two and a half hours backwards and forwards at the beginning and end of every day, versus an hour. Um, at the end of the every day and also, um, quiet roads, um, part of the reason why I like this sold out place is, is the, um, If you have a look on the map, the route from Monterey, um, takes [00:29:00] you, um, parallel to 101 for a lot of the route along some very quiet roads.

Um, so I was kind of, I’m always keen to explore that part, that kind of rural California and see what that looks like. And of course that makes for tiring work, that makes for less tiring work at the end of the day. So, yeah, so I stayed out there and of course the reason for staying out there is if you know, Pebble Beach, you know, the, the accommodation around the Monterey Peninsula is just absolutely ridiculous over that weekend.

So, well, what do I mean by that? I mean that a days in that might charge you a hundred bucks a night is going to charge you 400 bucks a night. No kidding. Earlier in the week, you know, if, if that’s, that’s like the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of Pebble Beach weekend, um, often they won’t let you book for just one night.

But, you know, I did stay in [00:30:00] Monterey with Ollie on the Wednesday night and we got that motel for less than 200 a night, so. You know, it’s not, it’s not always completely unreasonable, but it pretty much is completely unreasonable. I was like, you know what, I’ll see what it’s like staying away and to be further away.

And to be honest, I would do the Soledad, um, kind of stay again. I stayed in the Motel 6, you know, that part of Soledad’s base. Soledad’s actually a nice. town, but the Soledad part that I was staying in where the motels are, it’s like a truck stop and and a McDonald’s and a Carl’s Jr. and you know, or just, just a truck stop basically.

Um, but you know, fine for, uh, for, for me to stay and, and save me, you know, put, made the accommodation was, you know, the, the 100 a night I feel comfortable paying. So there we go. Um, that, so that was the trip structured a different way. It meant that I did, uh, a lot of driving. Um, [00:31:00] but you know, for me, that’s part of, of Pebble, um, weekend is that you spend a lot of time in the car.

Um, you’re not just looking at car events. You’re spending a lot of time in the car, driving from one event to another, to and from accommodation, to and from dinners. Um, you know, it’s a, it’s a car weekend in every sense of, of, of the word. Um, uh, so. The thing I’ve got sort of on the top of my list, if you like, but the, the thing that I’ve noted down here was I like to try and really defocus on the minutiae and really get a sense of, of a general impression.

Um, And I was struck last year by all the McLarens, there were lots of McLarens, so at one point a driving group of like 14 of them came past me and I was like, wow, it only feels like yesterday that McLaren was starting to manufacture road cars and yet [00:32:00] here is like a whole subculture of people younger than me, people in their 30s and 40s who’ve collecting these supercars, You know, they’re coming to Pebble Beach.

They’re coming to car week. I feel like they’re probably not on the lawn at Pebble Beach. Maybe they are, I don’t know. Maybe they, they’re the people that come all dressed up with their beautiful wives and girlfriends. Um, maybe they’re the people that come on the lawn in the afternoon. Um, I don’t, I don’t know.

I, it’s a really peculiar kind of thing. I feel like there’s a subculture of Pebble Beach. This is what I’ve said, I’ve said it on this pod before, I feel like there’s a subculture of Pebble Beach, which I, which doesn’t mingle in the Duesenberg, Packard kind of circles, which I feel like, you know, the, the, the, what actually happens on the Sunday afternoon side of it, I feel like there’s a whole modern supercars, like, manufacturer, flashy parties element of the Pebble Week, which [00:33:00] I have no, which I know nothing of.

Anyway, so that was my thought last year. My thought this year Was around how many Rolls Royces that I saw. I saw many Rolls Royces, um, There seemed, there was literally a car park full of them at Barnardus, which is the flashy hotel, um, hour long 68 near Laguna Seca. If you’re, you’re looking on a map, and really a nice place to stay.

I have nice things to, to say about it. But yeah, actually, they had a car park full of Rolls Royces. I guess the manufacturers were doing some kind of, of, you know, junket. Or something. But, uh, and, and don’t get me wrong, you know, they are impressive looking cars and having seen lots of them, they seem less off putting the ostentatious than they did to me earlier in, in, in the week.

And certainly the Cullinan has grown on me to the extent that I feel like this is how. It’s truly a Rolls Royce, like Rolls, it was [00:34:00] natural for Rolls Royce to do an SUV. Looking back, it wasn’t like shocking that Rolls Royce should do an SUV. Rolls Royce do luxury cars, and luxury cars of the vintage period are the same shape and weight as a modern Suburban or Escalade.

So, why shouldn’t Rolls Royce do a Suburban or Escalade? Um, of, of their own. And, and there were some Cullinans, there were some of these, um, Suicide Door, are they called Ghosts or Wraiths or whatever? I don’t know what they’re called, but they do lovely contrasting paint. Some of them in very modern colors, some of them in old fashioned.

I saw one in a lovely, um, uh, like 50s or 60s, um, Royal. Like royal blue, um, really did look, look nice. It had like a retro feel to it. Whereas, as I say, I saw another one that was like black and had a gold, gold [00:35:00] mirrored hood, you know, bonnet was, was gold down to the spirit of, of ecstasy. And, you know, Rolls Royce always were for ostentatious people, but, you know, I just feel that Pebble.

is that seems to speak to the way that Pebble Beach itself has become more about ostentatious people, people who are rich or people who are pretending to be rich, people who are, uh, who are seeing and being seen, I suppose what I would say, and that was what I felt about Miami. There are a lot of people who are seeing and being seen, a lot of people who had Lamborghinis because they That was a way of conveying that they were wealthy, which is probably the opposite.

It’s probably a way to convey that there’s somebody who’s recently acquired a lot of money and doesn’t really have any idea of how to save or spend it. Um, but I guess that’s Lamborghini’s [00:36:00] image, isn’t it? And why not? I don’t want to knock. People buy Lamborghinis. I would want to buy a Lamborghini myself if I suddenly acquired a lot of money, it seems.

Uh, a brilliant expression. It’s like the Crypto Bro thing, isn’t it? The yellow Lamborghini, you know. No wonder Volkswagen dial understeer into them to make it easier for people graduating from Golf Diesels onto Lamborghini Hurricanes, not to crash into the scenery. With more frequency than Mustang people.

So the reason why I missed the tour, the reason why Ollie was, was tired was we had a really big day looking properly [00:37:00] at what RM. Have one offer and I guess RM are combined with, with Sotheby’s now, and I think that that means they have access to a different, uh, kind of, you think of how large Sotheby’s are as a property management and, and sales group.

I, it feels as if RM have suddenly got access when the last couple of years since the merger have gotten access to a, a bigger, you know, customer list. Uh, uh, just uh, um. I suppose what I’m saying is I was very impressed by what they had on offer. Um, the breadth and depth of, of what they had, um, on offer at the Portola seemed better than, than, than ever.

Um, You know, the press will have it that the 250LM, Ferrari 250LM, that could have been a 30 or 40 million dollar car, um, you know, stalled out at 70 million dollars [00:38:00] or something like that. I think I, I think I read well. You know, this seems Um, you know, churlish given they had many high dollar cars. They had a Michael Schumacher Formula One car, the display that they had the 250 LM on, they had a Zagato bodied, um, fifties, uh, Ferrari that participated in Le Mans.

So that’ll be a, you know, super rare body style, you know, didn’t read up on, on that. Um. The thing they had that really tickled my fancy, and I definitely would have, uh, spent a lot of money on had I had it available, was they have a Lancia LC2, which I noticed this morning didn’t sell, so this is the Hot Rod Turbo Lancia Group C car that, guess what, was really fast, but broke down all the time, so the Porsches went on and won, um I was reading in the auction [00:39:00] description that, um, they did one year, they had a 2.

6 and the next year they had a three liter. The 2. 6 was the same engine as went in the Ferrari 288 GTO. Quite interesting. But this, this LC2, it’s, it’s martini livery. Um, awesome, awesome looking thing. Um, yeah, what I loved about it was the 2. 6 spec, the motor that went into the GTO, it was faster. Then, um, the Porsches so, but unreliable.

So the next year, instead of fixing reliability, they came with an even more powerful engine. And now I’d like 840 horsepower or something, and you’re like, Oh, you know, welcome to Lancia Motorsport in the 1980s, where everyone works in their own. Idea and finds, you know, finds funding for their own crazy idea.

And nobody stops to think about reliability or anything like that [00:40:00] in a remotely constructive way. Um, and therefore Porsche one.

The striking thing about RM was the, you know, right as they were meant to be closing, Ollie and I shniggled off upstairs and in a room that they had upstairs in the hotel. Um, They had an eight liter Bentley and my favorite car of the, and the eight liter Bentley for my money was a more elegant car than the eight liter Bentley that was on the show field at Pebble Beach.

The following down, me, I [00:41:00] love an eight liter Bentley. I didn’t look closely at either of them. Um, well, I pretty closely the RM one lovely, lovely car, completely fell in love with it. Um. I obviously would have had a bid on that as, as well as, as the LC2, um, but my actual car of the show, uh, the car of the, of RM’s offering was that a little Seata, um, with a, with the Fiat V8, like, Autovu, they call it, don’t they, little small capacity V8 from the early fifties, Seata used up the extra production run, there was a class of them at Pebble a few years ago, and, With the right body on it.

They’re, they’re not like Pebble winning elegant because they’re just not big enough. And I’m not usually a small car guy, but my word. Um, I loved some of them at Pebble last year and, and the car that RM had, um, was just absolute poetry. So [00:42:00] that or the eight liter Bentley, they were awesome. Um, the other thing that, that RM did that was, was kind of fun was, uh.

They set up outside this Ferrari barn find collection, and I guess the plot was that the cars had been stored in a warehouse and a hurricane had happened and the roof had fallen in and crushed some of the cars, and they set the display up in the same way as when the, you know, the hurricane crushed the cars.

Now, it didn’t damage many of them. Um, but you know, the roof just fell in on it and, and in fairness, uh, the, the car that’s made a little bit of news is, is the, the Mondial like a little sports car from the fifties, four cylinder sports car from the fifties, but pretty winning car. Um, I guess the estimate on it was one, two to one, six, and I think it did all of that, maybe [00:43:00] a bit more, and this for literally a twisted chassis.

Literally, there is, there’s no car to restore that you’re buying the VIN and a completely new car is, is going to be, uh, is going to be fabricated with, with that identity. And you might say, well, that’s really fakey do and, and, uh, I might agree with you. Um, but that is something you can race at Goodwood without any feeling of, oh, I’m trashing.

Something original. You can race that car like it came straight out of Scuderia Ferrari and you were a wealthy gentleman driver in the 1950s. You, you can get out and thrash it just like you could a Continuation Cobra. So, you know, is it, is it truly whatever the VIN number is? I mean, no, of course not. But, you know, the story, it can have a new [00:44:00] history.

I, I, I’m, I’m fine with it, it coming, uh. It coming out of the, it being remade, reanimated, like Franken Ferrari.

So usually, on a Friday evening, I would take a drive along Carmel Valley Road. And I would, uh, park up in the Bonhams car [00:45:00] park and have a little look, see what, what Bonhams had on offer. Um, didn’t do that this year. Um, was actually around. Pebble Beach and the Lodge and looking at Retro Auto. Um, Retro Auto had, um, the usual like, you know, Mercedes selling their EQS stuff, which I can’t get excited about, but the, you know, it’s not really aimed at me, is it?

Um, there was also a smaller but very compelling JDM display. Um, including a Spoon Civic. Why Spoon? I don’t understand Spoon. I’m gonna need to Google Spoon. But like a white Civic three door with just like set up street race back and you’re just like, [00:46:00] yes, this is a classic car. This is the 32 Ford, the 55 Chevy, the Civic, the white Civic with the strut braces and, and the aftermarket wheels slammed.

This is a classic car of the highest order. I feel like I need to buy one. I feel like if you fill a warehouse with them, in years to come, it’ll be like Hot Rod Mustangs or Camaros. You heard it here first. Um, what they also had and what got my attention even more was a feature of JDM and the drift scene.

A feature I’ve noticed is the use of four door sedans, because you’re looking for rear wheel drive so you can drift properly. So, a lot of those cars, it’s obviously better to have a two door car, they’re more handsome, but generally speaking, it’s hard to get a two door car with the big motor. Whereas you can get your, and by this I mean, think Infiniti [00:47:00] Q45, Lexus LS400, something that has a big V8 that you can weld the differential up and turn it into something which corners like the Dukes of Hazzard.

Because that’s the goal with these kind of cars. Well, well, there was a car in this JDM exhibit that was stanced, you know, with the wide lit wheels, lowered with the drift stance so it can can slide. No bonnet, no hood, um, hood is Japanese, I don’t know, whatever. The engine was exposed, the giant turbo all polished up show car standard, but looking like a drift car, the tailpipe that protrudes and bends up.

And this was a, this was a four door sedan. I can’t remember it was some JDM, uh, uh, Toyota. I think maybe a Nissan. Can’t remember exactly what it was would include picture. Really interesting to see that there, that [00:48:00] was one of the most interesting cars I, uh, I saw the, the whole, the whole of, uh, of Pebble Wheat.

This is the end, this is the end, this is the end of us Slippery slide, take a ride You want the best of both worlds Give your heart, it’s hard to find, you’re not a beast

I also. Um, missed the end of the quail, um, when I didn’t bother driving down Carmel Valley Road like I usually would. So, historically, what I’ve done is the quail event takes place [00:49:00] on the Friday, and if you sneak along by the golf course there, Um, as the show is closing about 5. 30, uh, you might see interesting cars, but you will see interesting cars being loaded and quite often you can take a stroll across the field and see some of the cars left on the field, you know, because the show’s over and, you know, people aren’t.

You know, there’s workers, you know, already taking the thing apart, um, you know, unpacking. So, you know, a lot of cars are covered up. A lot of the stands have already gone by that time, but you can still see a lot of the show. And I’ve always felt like you really get to see a different, really high caliber of car at the Quail.

So it seemed worth trying to do that. But, you know, I didn’t want to sort of bend the rules this year. I was, I don’t know, I was feeling. Rule abiding this year. I don’t know. And anyway, I was up, as I say, I was up at the lodge. I was looking at this interesting JDM stuff. Mercedes had some really interesting cars.

In [00:50:00] fact, the car that Mercedes had that caught my eye the most was the car that appeared on the concourse lawn as the factory entry of in the Mercedes Benz S Class category. So they, the original S Class, if you’re not aware, And Mercedes and Benz merged in 1926. They were forced to merge by the collapse of the Weimar Republic.

Obviously at that point, it was critical that you did a good product that had some export sales, because otherwise it was like, you weren’t going to survive and, and the car that they created, which was designed by Porsche was called the S class. Yes. Designed by Porsche. I said that correctly. This is Porsche.

Uh, the, the. That’s Porsche Senior. I can’t remember whether it’s Ferry or Ferdinand. I think Ferry is the younger one. Ferdinand is the older one, but, but whatever. It was designed by, uh, uh, Porsche. Um, and an amazing feat of engineering, great looking car. Um, and I was looking at that [00:51:00] instead of being at the car.

So I did get out to the track. Um, uh, we went on the Thursday, um, we arrived sort of mid afternoon. It [00:52:00] was, I think it was 30 to get, I mean, or 60 to get in for the car and me, and the, and the boy was free. So if you were adults, that would work out quite expensive, but the parking was easy. Um, I guess it’s pebble, isn’t it?

It just always does. So we, we went on the Thursday, so that, so that, uh, Monterey historic reunion officially runs from Wednesday through to the Sunday. So we went on Thursday and we could drive straight into the infield and, and park up. Um, we parked just. By the entry to turn five, the sort of bank left hander.

So if you know Laguna Seca, I guess one is. One is over the crest over the start finish, two is the hairpin, three is the right after the hairpin, four is the next right. So we were parked just on the entry turn five, the banked left hander. Um,

the boy knows the circuit now, always [00:53:00] has me climb up to the corkscrew, which, uh, keeps me, uh, keeps me healthy and makes me regret having had the beer that I usually chugged at the bottom of the hill. Um. We loved walking, um, viewing, he loves viewing from the corkscrew. He enjoyed the Group C cars the most this time.

Don’t know where that came from, just the noise in the theatre. I think he just absolutely loved them. Um, they were the ones he wanted to look at when we were in, in the paddock. Um, we have a little spot at the top of the hill where we like to sit, where there’s like a butt shaped rock that you can sit on that’s, uh, in, in the shade.

Um, because it was balls hot. I mean, of course, it always is, but it’s balls hot. Um, My thought about Laguna, and I was saying this to him, is, is, uh, from, from there, from turn two, the tight hairpin, through three, the [00:54:00] right, four, the next right, five, the banked left, and six, the next banked left, um, you can go faster and faster, and there’s a wonderful rhythm, and I think when people say, oh, the circuit’s technical, Um, I think what they mean is that you need to realize that it’s been sort of designed to have that kind of, of rhythm.

And that was a bit of a learning for me because I’m used to circuits like Thruxton or Silverstone where it’s, the corners don’t have, there’s no sense of like rhythm or anything like that. It’s just flat and fast and open. And, and, you know, people who don’t know British club circuits, you do know Silverstone and the British Grand Prix cops.

Corner at the end of the start, finish the 90 degree that they can go through flat out where, uh, VNA and Hamilton [00:55:00] tangled a few years ago. I mean, that corner is everything about a British Club circuit. To me. It’s, it’s, it’s fast, it’s flat, it’s open, and it’s just not technical. You just have to like get the apex right.

And the car has to be good and the kaons have to be big. And, and that’s the, the, the circuit. Um. Laguna Seca has a whole different level of sophistication. It’s, it’s cool, but, and it’s a different, it’s a different kind of thing. Um, and I was thinking about that when I was there just, just, just recently. Um.

The ones I love the most, um, were the historic Formula One cars. Um, you know, the, I guess Phil Riley has moved on to pastures new, um, he’s the person, or he, his shop is the place to have your DFV rebuilt and it’s just across the bridge over in, uh, caught in Madeira, just the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

So I always felt like it was very practical and attainable. To, you know, buy a [00:56:00] Brabham or your Lotus or your Williams Formula One car and have Phil Reilly do the engine building on it. Um, so we mourn Phil Reilly moments, a moment’s silence or moments revving motors for, uh, for Phil Reilly. But, um, yeah, so I enjoyed the historic Formula Ones there.

Um.

I guess the other thing that I noticed being there is, is how, um, the brass era racing cars, the, you know, the epic stuff that I love that’s not really that well suited to Laguna Seca, um, but every year at the, uh, You know, the Rolex Motorsport Reunion, which is the, the brand name, I guess, of, of the races at Laguna Seca over Pebble Beach weekend.

Um, they always brand themselves like the Ragtime Racers and they have like a spot right at the [00:57:00] beginning, right at the front of the, the paddock and, and posters and awnings and, and a whole. piece of theater, which is set up and felt very similar to the piece of theater that the auction companies had.

And I was just thinking about how in an era where you can see what’s going on, on the track at Laguna Seca, better. On YouTube than you can in person or where you can buy a vehicle from bring a trailer rather than going to an auction. It seems that they’re stepping up, you know, the live events are stepping up their theatrical game.

They’re leaning into the fact that they recognize that this is sort of performative theater that you’re involved in and there has to be this dynamic performative theater element. Otherwise, you just watch it on YouTube. Yeah, it’s terrific, right? I’m not saying that this is, um, it’s [00:58:00] a bad thing or a cheesy thing.

I’m saying that it’s exciting that, uh, you know, the, the. The environment, you know, the, the smell, the motion, the drama of, of classic cars works well with the, you know, the theater should not be a stranger for, for classic cars.

So two actual Pebble Beach itself. And, and again, this was structured a little differently for me, um, because in, in the past, [00:59:00] um, my friend, Wayne, Wayne Craig’s guy’s name, he’s the docent lead, uh, uh, uh, at Pebble Beach, been a friend of mine for, for, for years, great guy. Um, Wayne has usually been able to get us a ride with somebody who has a disabled placard, and that enables us to park in a different car park from the one that we’d normally, the other volunteers, park in.

So most years, I’ve had the luxury of getting up a little later, parking in a car park reasonably close, and walking. To the lodge, um, where you get a volunteer breakfast and so on. Well, this time, not only had I, was I staying in Soledad an hour away from the volunteer parking spot, but the volunteer parking spot was a park and ride.

And I had to, like, allow an hour for the parking and riding, so between not eating very well, not, [01:00:00] you know, probably having a beer more than I should have done the night before, um, the rising at 3. 30 or whatever horrific time it was I did have to get up, I just was not fully myself. All the way through all the way through the day, but that said, um, the show itself remains an absolute tour de force in.

You know, certainly getting the very best cars and putting them together in the very best way. It’s every class, every element you look at, the closer you look, the better it is. Yet, by 10. 30 in the morning, you cannot see the cars or judge elegance remotely because of all the bloody people standing in the way.

And That is, [01:01:00] it’s, it’s literally, it’s like visiting Paris and trying to go to an art museum and see whatever the thing that you’re meant to see is, there’s always some asshole taking a selfie, blocking your view, you can’t like contemplate, you can’t, you can’t silently contemplate the Mona Lisa as it’s creator did for hours at the time as its owners have through the centuries, which is what makes it as valuable as it is.

You can’t do that in the Louvre because there’s some asshole from some other bloody European conquistador country driving their elbow into your face in order to take a selfie of themselves with the Mona Lisa. And I mean, just, ah, anyway, stepping off my rant. It’s the morning is the time to see the cars.

You can [01:02:00] actually step back and appreciate. The elegance you can later in the evening as well if you stay late in the but of course a lot of the cars have moved around by then and you may not be able to appreciate the actual car that you’re looking for until the end and I years ago I used to have the stamina to get up early do the whole day and and stay to the end but I confess this year I I didn’t have as much stamina and uh uh I uh I left before The, the ramp ceremony, um, not least cause my first tour wasn’t until 10 30.

So between like arriving on the field at six o’clock and watching the cars and looking at them, there’s then a long time, um, until your first, until your first tour. So I was exhausted, uh, certainly by, uh, by lunchtime, but anyway, um. In terms of the careful balance of classes that I [01:03:00] love pebble for, uh, they contrast to something new.

So we talked about, you know, Lamborghini, the curated cars being there. Um, it was 60 years of Lamborghini. It was 60 years of McLaren. Um, they had, uh, Senna. MP4 from 1988. Um, this is the year that Senna and Pross were dominant. This is the year that Senna emerges as arguably, if not the greatest driver ever lived, the fastest driver ever lived, arguably.

So, the only way to frame that is to say that, you know, if, if Arthur was the greatest warrior who ever lived, Excalibur, his sword, is an awesome thing to behold. And in that McLaren, we are looking at Excalibur, and, and that was an awesome thing. Um, it’s in a row that has three McLaren [01:04:00] F1s in it, a road car that’s done 200 miles in its whole life.

A racy guy and arguably, I mean, maybe the car, the one Lamar, I didn’t, I have not checked the car guide that they do a good job of giving out now. And fundamentally, the car guide has more information in it than I can give as to a guide. But. What the car guide can’t do is the kind of stuff that the tour group that I had wanted, which was how does the concourse work and how do they choose the cars and all of that kind of blocking and tackling of, of, of the concourse.

So, yeah, so my tour group was from Mercedes Benz and Mercedes Benz were arguably the featured mark. There was a class of S’s, SSK’s and SSKL’s and, you know, you can see the model evolution there. And then in classic Pebble style, they do a [01:05:00] Vanderbilt cup class and there’s three. Mercedes from the Vanderbilt Cup era, which just shows what absolute monsters on the track, uh, Daimler and Benz were before the two companies merged.

And then you’ve got this awesome S Class and you can show The punters, the difference between what your company was doing on the racetrack and what your company was doing on the road. And we talked about Sindelfingen and the in house coach building, which I, I just think is the most. Awesome thing.[01:06:00]

Don Williams, the Black Art Museum patron, uh, creator has, has passed, um, the Black, uh, the Big part of, of Pebble Beach, Pebble Beach have, have had a big song and dance, uh, uh, about it this year. Um, you know, and, and I want to, to pay tribute to how Don touched me in, in a completely unpretentious way, which is that, you know, my connection with the classic car space, Eh.

in California began with my engagement with the Blackhawk Museum docent program. Wayne Craig, who leads the docent program at Pebble, I met him through the docent program at, at Blackhawk. So, you know, the connection is, is there, and there’s still, um, you know, the core, our core [01:07:00] of us, um, Pebble Beach docents who were docents at the Blackhawk or, or still are.

Um, so, um, Don. His thing was to touch as many of the great cars as he could. Um, so in other words, he wasn’t a buyer and a keeper, he was a buyer and a seller. Um, he sold the first million dollar car. He sold the first ten million dollar car. Um, the story that sums up his aesthetic best is the, the, When he and Ken Baring set up the Blackhawk Museum in Danville in California, um, the two of them had had dinner in Geneva, and they were walking in Geneva, as [01:08:00] you do after dinner, looking in their windows of the watch shops, and, and They were looking at the way the jewelry, the watches, the rings were offset against this mirrored black background.

And the thought was, we should do a car museum like that. We should do a car museum where the cars are set up like that. So that was the thought with the Blackhawk. And this is In a time when, this is in the 80s, in a time when, you know, and, you know, we have this term now, over restored, and, and at that time, we were over restoring cars, and, and, you know, my own desire to keep things original is at odds with Don Williams’s desire to have everything as, as beautiful and shiny as, as possible, and let your wife [01:09:00] Choose the color.

That’s kind of the way that a lot of people do these, these kind of cars. And, and, you know, for somebody who loves the original finish. Um, you know, gussying the car up and then taking it to a car show and hoping that it wins. That’s just not a part of the hobby that I’m in. Sir Don Williams once said, uh, I don’t like crap.

And, uh, I always kind of took that personally because basically everything that, uh, I have would fall into crap as his category because he loves stuff. Absolutely picture perfect, you know, the white wall tires, the gleaming chrome, that was how he wanted cars to be, and in his era, in the 80s, you, you know, if the leather was cracked, you restored Um, and, and for us now, that’s destroying the patina and it’s really hard to, to, to think about, you know, for, for [01:10:00] me, um, the, it’s not just like the patina and whether the leather’s cracked or not, or whether the paint’s faded or not, whether you can, you know, win a car show with it or whether it’s as the car was, you know, the original thirties leather, um, for me, it’s about, Storytelling and dramatic as the Blackhawk notion of the car floating like a piece of jewelry against the background.

Dramatic as that is, it blunts your ability to tell the story and relate it to the people. Um, so in the Blackhawk, you know, docents would always talk about wanting to have mannequins and Don was always keen to avoid that. Um, because they’d look absurd, right? They would make the cars look silly. Um, but With the mannequins, that was a great way to engage a tour group, especially [01:11:00] children, with the idea that they might be able to ride in this car, drive this car, these are the kind of clothes that people used to wear to drive these cars.

It was just a way of humanizing the exhibit, which is exactly what Don and Ken’s original vision did not encompass. So I just think that’s interesting and I think it’s, it’s, uh, there’s almost, um, you know, it’s museum fashions and it’s fashions about how, um, to collect, um, how to show connoisseurship.

That’s fundamentally what is being, um, discussed here. Um, and, you know, I, I guess I could disagree with, um, Don about whether or not I like crap. He doesn’t, I do. Um, I do love that he elevated old cars from being second hand tools to being antiques. Because before his time, you know, a Duesenberg was just an old car.

And it was people from [01:12:00] his generation who looked at them and were like, No, they’re not just old cars, they’re amazing bits of American history. And they really need to be preserved and gloried. And, and, uh, that’s exactly what he and guys like Nethercutt and so on did. So, hat off to, to, so Godspeed Don Williams with your Touch Every Car.

Godspeed, sir.

Should say as well, the Trossi Mercedes was on the lawn, the Trossi Mercedes SSK. Trossi, of course, one of Ferrari’s early financial backers, pretty handy driver. Um, [01:13:00] raced an SSK, liked it. Later, brought it back, had a dramatic body put on it. It’s the picture that I’ve used for the episode. Um, owned by Ralph Lauren.

Um, I never before wanted to pick a best in show before the show, but this time I was like, the trotty car will win. Um, it wasn’t being judged that much. There you go. It did win a couple of years ago. Um, a couple of other cars on the field have won other years as, as well. Um, applicably, uh, it was a.

Mercedes that won this year. It was a 540k Special Roadster, a black one. Um, quite pleasing for me. Um, my tour group, as I said, was people from Mercedes Benz. Bloody excellent English, all of them, by the way. Um, I didn’t even realize they were all German until halfway through my [01:14:00] tour. Um, but, uh Um, didn’t know much about the concourse, so I did a lot of explaining how the concourses mechanics worked.

You know, you start with a hundred points, you get deductions. The class, whoever wins the class is the, you know, the, yes, the tool rows are important. If a piece is missing, that’s a point off. Um, when did the judges do the judging? You know, how do we choose the judges? How does one get to be a, you know, all of that kind of stuff.

Which, which, uh, uh, it was a real pleasure, um, talking with them, uh, with them about. Um, it just goes to show that people don’t want the speeds and feeds on the cars. They really don’t. Um, yeah. Um, it was very pleasing to me that my tour ended. I ended my tour by comparing a Mercedes 540k. With, uh, an eight liter Bentley and there was a horse in between and we talked about, you know, Audi and horse and, you know, we could compare the three [01:15:00] together.

They loved doing that. And then later in the afternoon, the Mercedes was best in show. So that just worked out well. I hope they had a memorable time. They certainly seemed like they, they did one particularly pleasing thing for me this year was I stood on the field at one point early in the day, trying to orient where I was going to stand my stand to do my various little talking spots.

And a woman came up to me and said, did I remember her? And I was like, I’m afraid I don’t. She said, you did a tour for us two years ago. Uh, we loved it. Um, we’re doing another tour today, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your tour. Um, and I, she went away and I was like, gosh, I don’t remember you, but you remembered me and that’s just super cool.

That’s why I, that’s why I bothered doing this. Um, so black Mercedes, one best in show. Um, I used a black Mercedes for the show. Use the old E55, 800 miles backwards and forwards to and from Soledad. Um, it [01:16:00] sat for six months. Um, before this time I did the battery and the. Uh, locks, as I’ve prowled about in another one of these pods.

But yeah, I just cracked 800 miles onto it, and the damn thing’s just worn it beautifully. Um, some of them, you know, cruising miles, some of them really quite hard miles. And I’ve lived in the car, as you tend to in these, at these kind of events. You know, sat in it, um, with the air conditioning on. Um, It’s absolutely brilliant.

I love the W210 E55. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Um, yes, it has the rust on every body panel. Now it has a terribly cracked windshield, I guess. I was, when it came out of storage, I turned the wiper on, it was raining and I think the wiper must have been a bit stuck in dust or something. Anyway, it, when it cracked the windshield, so the windshield’s now [01:17:00] looking like it’s, uh, uh, yeah, not terribly cracked, but it’s got three or four different, you know, foot long winding cracks away from where the wiper mounts.

But we love the black Mercedes and this pebble was very much the of, uh, of the black Mercedes.

So. I want to wrap up by just talking about something that’s just been gnawing at me about not just Pebble Beach, but about old car events generally. Um, and it was sort of summed up by something a friend said to me about how cadaverous appearing some of the entrants were. And In his mind, there was a contrast between the old car, which has been [01:18:00] perfectly restored and the woman presenting it, who has had a ton of plastic surgery and yet still appears faintly cadaverous.

Um, this sort of idea of the car somehow being legacy. This is why she’s invested all this time and energy in an object which she says she’s You know, not going to drive, like, of course I wouldn’t drive it, which is the Object’s purpose so that it seems odd in itself and, and, you know, she is trying to make herself new and the car has been made new.

There’s a very odd, um, I think the, I think the term is avatar is, uh, going on here. This is, there’s a really odd, um, dynamic taking place, uh, uh, around this [01:19:00] and, um, This idea was introduced to me, um, shortly after I had been overheard a snippet of conversation and it was during judging, so it must have been earlier in the day, or maybe it wasn’t during judging, maybe it was either way, it was a, it was a contestant.

Talking about himself with, with somebody and I just heard a snippet of what he said and he said because you know, I am a plastic surgeon by trade, you know, I am a plastic surgeon by trade and I’m thinking, yeah, the, the, the aesthetic on display. in the plastic surgeon’s office and the aesthetic on display on the field of pebble beach are maybe similar things so maybe it would be poetic to just end [01:20:00] profoundly there but i’m not going to do that i’m going to recommend a youtuber I’ve been watching, um, UK car.

I’m not sure if he’s a scouser, but he has a sort of scousy kind of accent. Can’t remember the guy’s name. Lee, Lee is the guy’s name. He only started the YouTube channel in November. It’s really picked up quickly because of his. I don’t know, he has a really, he has a direct, clear manner, and he is the kind of person you would do business with, you can understand why he’s been successful in the car trade, he used to do auction stuff, he tells us, he goes to auctions, um.

Does an assessment of the car, you feel like you learn a lot. That’s why I started watching him. Um, I guess YouTube’s affected his life because he used to do an MOT station and he stopped doing that now. And he’s setting up [01:21:00] his own, like, used car trade, like, stand now. And I think partly it’s because the YouTube thing has given him the chance to advertise and build credibility.

in, in a completely different way. So just as part of my car storytelling, I just, just love this bloke. He’s, he’s, uh, you know, I enjoyed Rabbit’s used cars when Rabbit actually talked about used cars, but now Rabbit’s gone all Hollywood. Um, this guy from, from Northern England, he’s taken over from Chop’s Garage as my new favorite YouTuber.

So. Thanks for listening. Don’t know whether you feel like this format works. I disable all the comments anyway, don’t I, so you can’t insult me. So yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll carry on with this format. Maybe I won’t. It’s completely the artist’s whim.[01:22:00]

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports, as part of our Motoring Podcast Network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, BrakeFix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.

patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator. And this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media, as mentioned in the episode.[01:23:00]