Monterey Car Week 2019 ... Auction Previews & McCall's Motorworks Revival


Welcome to McCall

Welcome to McCall

 

Monterey, 14th of August, 2019

Now the car week is in full swing. After the Concours on the Avenue yesterday in Carmel the auction company opened their doors today to show their offering of the days to come.

First we went into 17-miles drive to visit the official auction house of the concours, Gooding & Company. With a new tent the bidders and guest were greeted with a spacious entrance and one of the highlights of the sale, the Ferrari 312T. After Niki Lauda passing away a few weeks ago this is the opportunity to get one of his famous Ferrari racers. Not less impressive is the beasty Isotta Fraschini that is right behind him, one can only imagine how it might feel to use this car in today’s traffic, even the normal road legal speed might become exciting on the open country road.

Furthermore Gooding is selling a couple of Ferrari and important Alfa Romeo. The two exceptional 6C Alfas on show are the Tipo 256 Coupe as well as the 6C 3000 Superflow, a design concept on a race proven chassis as driven by Fangio. Although quite a while on the market now the auction might be the place it actually sells as the real value will be shown in case there are several interests in the elegant racer that was show in Villa D´Este a few years ago.

In a changing market the top lots are still the cars from Maranello and Gooding offers both a nice Series I cabriolet of the 250 GT series as well as a LWB California Spyder with covered headlights. Seen a couple of times in the previews years the car changed colour several times to be shown in grey at the moment. In addition to the open sports cars a GT LWB “TdF” can be bought this weekend.

After picking up the entry tickets for Sunday’s concours and the Quail Motorsport gathering one had to keep up with the traffic towards downtown and visit RM Sotheby´s. For the second year RM can use the newly built Conference Centre at the Portola Hotel with several ball rooms and a display area up the stairs. One of the rooms was reserved for tomorrows Aston Martin sale in association with the works for AM featuring the DB3S works race car as well as the only DB5 Bond car with full functional gadgets.

Going to the next room one of the highlight of the sale could be seen with the very first car to wear the Porsche name on the front with the Type 64. Although actually a simple car based on VW components the streamliner is one of the most important Porsches in existence starting the history of Porsche and a lot of talks were going on about the hefty estimate in the region of 20 Million. Just one car this week is in the same region and one of only two McLaren F1 upgraded by the works to the high downforce specification and the LM engine the gunmetal grey 3-seater is certainly a car with more potential buyers as it can be seen as one of the top cars from a more and more popular club of F1-owners that are considered as the 250 GTO of the present.

Furthermore several Ferrari are on sale again including a SWB California, a 400 Superamerica, and a 250 GT SWB Berlinetta and the one-off 375 MM.

Other cars of interest are the ex-works Porsche RS60 and the Maserati A6 GCS.

After leaving RM it was time for the first social event of the week, the McCall Jet Center Party. Although there are cars standing this is certainly one of the event where one does meet less petrol heads and more people interested in the social life of the car week. After a champagne-welcome one could wander in between jewellery, watches and a couple of exotic cars to have a cocktail. The red carpet VIP ticket gave access to the balcony overlooking the whole show. After the sun set the party was in full swing but in typical American fashion many people left early to have dinner in downtown Monterey or join more private dinner parties in one of the houses in the ground of Pebble Beach.

Tonight will be a short night as tomorrow we will see the concours cars for the first time when the go on the tour down highway 1 and back to Carmel.

Furthermore RM Sotheby’s and Bonhams will start the auction days a day early as both of them added a Thursday sale to the calendar.

 

Report & images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de



Related Material


... Consolidated Monterey Auction Preview B, G&C, RM >>>


... Consolidated 2014 - 2018 Auction Results sorted by Price descending >>>


... Consolidated 2014 - 2018 Auction Results in gallery view >>>

 

... Ferrari Register by Year, Model and Chassis Number >>>


... Consolidated 2019 Auction Results >>>

 

SIY = Search it yourself