Monterey Car Week, A Recap
What I drove, saw and heard on the peninsula this year.
I appreciate the everyone’s understanding with this post being late. Until now I’d managed to stick to my goal of publishing weekly since relaunching the newsletter, but between Car Week, a drive program immediately following that and a few days of being under the weather, I needed some time to recharge without a screen in front of me. This piece was fun to write though I’m glad to finally be getting it out there. With that in mind I decided to make it available for everyone to read with no paywall, so if you enjoy it please share with friends.
-Andrew
When I first went to Monterey Car Week I was at a very different place in life than I am now. I’d been getting paid to write about and take photos of automobiles for a few years, but I didn’t treat it as a full time profession. It was a side hustle, something to keep my writing muscles in shape in a space that I’d always been comfortable in while I pursued screenwriting and copywriting.
My first time at Car Week changed that.
The scale of the events, the amount of attendees, the sheer number of iconic cars I’d always wanted to see(let’s be honest, drive) and the breadth of knowledge so easily accessible by talking to strangers at the shows, I was dumbfounded. After that first year, everything changed in my professional life. I widened the scope of my writing with regard to automobiles and took my work more seriously. Having seen how many levels there were I better understood how to play the game and so that’s what I did for a number of years. In the process Car Week, specifically the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, broadened my horizons. Not only did I come to appreciate automakers and vehicle models I’d have otherwise been unaware of, but I went down many a rabbit hole that led me to collectors, designers, engineers, racers, industrialists, and celebrities that I’d known nothing about previously. Like any subculture actually worth being a part of, it’s not the product that should keep you engaged, it’s the people. Now, it should come as no surprise that there are some truly loathsome people in the automotive community. It would be easy enough to say “oh it’s a bunch of rich assholes that ruin it for everyone” but that’s just lazy. There are indeed plenty of rich assholes strutting around during Car Week, plenty more whose tax returns are unlikely to match their bravado. However if I’ve learned anything in my adult life it’s that you can’t let shitty people ruin things for you.
I was damn close to letting this happen after having had a year off from Car Week when everything was cancelled in 2020. By the time August 2021 rolled around I’d spent more time in and around the car community than ever before. It had gone from something I would be briefly immersed in while on a press trip or on weekends when going for drives with friends, to dominating my life day-in, day-out. It felt like all of the sudden everyone was a car enthusiast thanks to the abundance of time and money people suddenly had with remote work booming and the world still re-booting. Things were already trending in this direction as automakers had increasingly sought to be lifestyle brands following the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, but like most trends the Covid pandemic was an accelerant and pulled the future forward. By the time Car Week arrived that year I’d pretty much had enough of car culture for the foreseeable future. I wasn’t quite jaded, but I was certainly burnt out. Happily, I ended up not going on a brand’s program and instead went with a friend who’d never been before. While I was still able to get us access to the marquee events, we attended some of the smaller ones that I’d never been to as well and seeing his genuine excitement throughout the weekend rubbed off on me. It was also a good reminder of how fortunate I had been to pursue my passion for all things auto/moto and to be able to continue to do so at a time when much of the world was still upside down.
Which brings me to this year.
Going in I knew it was going to be different. Having moved to Nashville after 16 years in the epicenter of automotive culture how could it not be? Much has changed in the 9 months since Megan and I left LA, but among the most apparent things is that while I enjoy cars on many levels, I really love driving. I’ve known this to be true on some level for a while now, but being away from “the scene” in LA laid it bare. I deeply appreciate the artistry of design, I’m impressed by the feats of mechanical engineering, I’m attracted to vehicles as status symbols, but those elements of my passion pale in comparison to the act of driving. Being the fortunate guy that I am, a friend offered up his 2005 Maserati Gran Sport as a means of getting from SF to Monterey. It was a wonderfully authentic, down-to-earth way to start the week in so-far that there’s no guarantee a mid-Aughts Maserati is going to make it to the grocery store and back, let alone run smooth for two hours straight. And yet, it did just fine. Better than fine in fact. Twenty minutes into the drive I was racing up some winding stretch of road, trusting the Gran Sport completely and laughing at the fact my friend had paid a mere $10k for the car. Sure the paint was rough, the check engine light would pop on here and there, and there was a persistent hiss coming from one of the rear speakers, but the V8 co-developed with Ferrari sang a lovely tune and the automated-manual “F1” gearbox isn’t as bad a people make it out to be once you figure out how to use it properly. For a nearly 20 year old car it felt plenty capable and engaging in a way that’s unfortunately very rare in new sports cars these days. It was a great way to kick off the trip, but it wasn’t the only Maserati I drove, nor was it the only Italian car either.
I have to admit that in years past I took the incredible stretch of road that is Highway 1 between Carmel and Cambria for granted. Hard to believe given the grandeur of the scenery, but humans are nothing if not highly adaptable and ultimately it became just another road with the Pacific Ocean on one side and hillsides on the other. A few hours driving a Ferrari 296 GTS with the top down after 9 months away from the coast hit the reset button. Everything was more vibrant than it had been for many years and I longed to shirk all responsibility, to simply continue driving south and deal with the consequences another day. While Ferrari needed their car back, another friend of mine had keys to spare, specifically to a brand new 911 GT3 RS and 911 Targa 4 GTS. The latter I have spent a great deal of time in and I regularly say that it’s the best all around sports car you can get. Any chance I get to drive one, I take it and an early morning rip on the PCH is about as good as it gets. As for the former, this was my first time in it and as it was a brief experience I can’t pass judgement on it. From the day it was unveiled I’ve said it looks ridiculous anywhere other than on a track and I stand by that. It’s not a pretty car, but few “street-legal race cars” are, outside of the ones from Italy anyway.
Which brings me back to Maserati. In thinking about what automaker “won” Car Week, I have to go with “The Trident”. The unveil of the MC20 based limited edition GT2 Stradale at The Quail was unequivocally a success, as was the first delivery to a customer of the track-only MCExtrema at Laguna Seca Raceway, where it subsequently did parade laps that I wish I’d been there to see and hear. In fact, I didn’t spend much time at the track enjoying Rolex Reunion as I have in years past, not because I don’t enjoy it, but because if I’m going to be there, I need to be in a car, racing, not spectating. Having driven Laguna Seca a few times for private events only makes it worse when I’m watching friends run their vehicles at what is arguably one of the best vintage motorsports events in the world.
Honestly, it gives me a little more patience for the hordes of camera toting, Go-Pro wielding kids running around trying to get a shot of something, anything during Car Week. I remember it being “not great” when I first started attending, but post-pandemic it has gotten much, much worse. Downtown Carmel-By-The-Sea, Cannery Row in Monterey, the entrance to The Quail, the valet circle at Inn at Spanish Bay, all swarming with “the youths” searching for digital clout. Do they know who any of these collectors or drivers are? Do they care about the historical significance of any of these cars? Should we care how they get into automotive culture as long as they are into it? Ultimately I’ve made my peace with them, annoying as they may be. I don’t know what the point of all that content they capture is, especially when it’s all the same and they’re too young to have an original point of view, but at least they’re excited about cars and they have to start somewhere. I suppose it’s not all that different than my own journey from JDM(Japanese Domestic Market) tuner culture to a broad appreciation of automotive culture. With how many things there are vying for the next generation’s attention we’ll just have to wait and see if this passion for vehicles sticks once they’re old enough to drive, let alone think about collecting.
If there was an overarching theme to the week, a “vibe” if you will, I would say it was an uneasy recognition that change is in the air, which naturally makes people anxious. For all the youthful energy that brands try to imbue Car Week with and all the influencers doing their best to present it as a cool and accessible experience for everyone, it still skews older, wealthy and exclusive. I’ve always thought of it as a microcosm of American culture at large and perhaps in no year since 2016 has that felt so true.
I overheard plenty of grumbling about the upcoming election, plenty of grumbling about the economy, plenty of grumbling about “the younger generations”. All that says to me is wealthy people still love bitching about things as much as everyone else. That being said, with one ancient presidential candidate out and the other’s prospects not looking so good, perhaps there was some recognition that a generational shift is not only happening, it’s already underway and those that have had things their way for a long time aren’t simply going to get to run out the clock while retaining positions of power. At least in the automotive community anyway, I don’t pretend to have any meaningful insight on a macro level.
From what I saw at the auctions, at awards ceremonies and yes, on social media, what’s garnering attention and accruing value is trending younger. Keep in mind this is the world of cars we’re talking about here, where things move very, very slowly. Still, classes like “FIA GT Race Cars” and “Wedge Shaped Concept Cars” give me hope, as did a preservation class car taking top honors at Pebble Beach for the first time, even if it was a 1934 Bugatti Type 59. I hope it’s the start of real change and not an aberration because for Car Week to continue to be relevant it’s going to have to evolve. Could I live without going? Could we all live without it happening? Of course, at the end of the day its just one gigantic “cars & coffee”. However, if it can do for someone in the next generation what it did for me in terms of broadening my horizons and deepening my passion for automobiles, then it’s worth investing in the success of it by encouraging people to experience it for themselves. That’s the message I’d like to leave you with, go, and see what you make of it.
Great read, it gives a real picture of the appreciation and knowledge you have of cars!