Wet Your Appetite For Car Mecca In Pebble Beach

Just over a month away and automotive aficionados world over will have all eyes and ears on the the activity in and around the 2013 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.  This is the car guy & gal equivalent of the Super Bowl, World Cup and Indy 500 all rolled into one.  Copyright © 2013 Pebble Beach Company

From 4+ separate concours events to tours to auctions, on a tiny slice of Coastal California, this is were the world’s automotive temperature is taken.  Smart car companies unveil their latest models and concepts cars during this single week.  Why not?  It is the world’s most prestigious automotive event.  A large portion of one’s car buying public for luxury cars is right in this very spot.  A no brainer really.  If a major car company doesn’t post, let me just say – it is noted and talked about.

Here is a flavor of what you might see outside and around the big event.  Start turning back the clock on your automotive eyes with a visit to Automobilia Monterey 2013.  Anything and everything in the automotive memorabilia genre is available.  Scroll back, I wrote “anything”  –  you’ll never see any automotive rug art in any of my interiors but, there is something for everyone. Like I was say’in…anything, how about the Monkee’s car?   This was for sale last year at Mecum Auctions.   Once the stepchild of the vintage car auction world, Dana Mecum and his crew just keep getting better and better cars each year.  I’ll admit it I go kicking and screaming to Mecum, all those American 50’s and 70’s era cars give me a rash.  But I wade through the car duds to see a 1930’s Rolls Royce, cool retro racecar like this Porsche or Ferrari Testarossa (the good one, not the Miami Vice version). Carmel and Monterey are always ripe with street sights of cars you’ve never seen before like this chrome Aventatdor.   I’m guessing a wrap, ya think?

Warning: after attending just one Pebble Beach Car week event you’ll have the most amazing set of finely tuned car goggles, anything deemed the slight bit pedestrian is an all out yawn. Here is the famous concours venue at Pebble Beach towards the middle of the week when venue begins to awaken.  Note this lovely sun is not always present and never at 7, 8 or 9 a.m. while the coastal fog is still holding tight.  Dress for anything.  Some years women are in furs, by necessity, and later in the afternoon the sun can warm up.  However, this is still the coast, translation: warm = sweater and sunglasses and likely a raincoat.

If you are going, get your sleep now.  The evening auctions are a must do even if you aren’t buying.  The Gooding & Company auction events go into the late evening and while they sprinkle in the notable cars throughout, the energetic crowds make one want to stay until the last gavel.  The energy is amazing and to watch people bid millions of dollars on automotive splendor is really kinda cool.  Makes one appreciate capitalism and hard work.

Stay tuned from now until the event in August, I’ll offer up tips and pictures from past Pebble Beach events to help get you in the spirit.  Ask if you’ve got questions.  If you are going, I’ve got good insider tips which publishing would ruin, drop me an email.