'14 Motorsports Reunion - aka MONTEREY CAR WEEK

[John Z Goriup]

The final set of the 'Motorsport Reunion' Saturday event.

Interesting flares on that '63 356.

Thanks for looking, Pebble Beach is next.

JZG

[70tangerine]

I would guess that 356 flare is to mimic the abarth 356 rear flare......hmmm....

[John Z Goriup]

Joel, you could very well be correct……….sort of look a little like the Carrera flares, don't they ?

Here's something else to mull over:

In Oct. of 2011 I attended the marvelous and unique "Race Car Classic" event, at the same venue at which the 'Quail' is usually held. There were well over 100 of the rarest, most exotic very early Porsches displayed, including the silver '62 Super 90 GT Coupoe shown below ( photo #1 ), which riveted my attention with its elegant and subtle flares. The car posted above, which you commented on, is a '63 Super 90 Coupe ( photo #2 ). So here we have two very similar, consecutive-year Super 90 GT coupes, they both have a Brumos connection involving the essentially same, highly unusual modification, since I'm not aware of any other factory flared 356s.…..hmmmm, indeed.

Here is what the placard for the Race Car Classic display car had to say: " Brumos Porsche ordered this car from the factory with factory aluminum 6.5" wheels, flared fenders ( my emphasis ) and a number of other lightweight options typical of GT category vehicles The Super 90 engine had a counterweighted crank, sodium-filled valves and Solex P40-II carburetors. It is believed to have been raced at Daytona International Speedway on at least one occasion ".

On the '63 GT spotted at Laguna Seca in Aug. '14 it shows the name Brumos Racing '63 -'66 , and Bawlby Racing '75 - '91 painted on the roof (see photo), leading me to speculate that perhaps the Brumos organization was working with Porsche to create a model exclusive to them, or ordered cars with this feature two years in a row to convince the factory to adopt flares - to enable the use of bigger wheels and tires in general. I suppose they might have had some leverage had they won their class at Daytona. Either way, methinks the answer probably is hidden in Jacksonville.

On the other hand, I've always been a bit of a "conspiracy theorist" regarding Porsche matters……………double hmmmm !

JZG

[John Z Goriup]

Between a massive home remodel / reconstruction / renovation project which has slipped way behind schedule, lousy weather ( thank God, because we really needed the rain ) , and a million other unplanned things popping up, I finally finished post-processing the last of the Pebble Beach photos to complete Part II of my annual Monterey Car Week thread. I was reasonably careful not to duplicate shots from my original posting back in August, nor to show images published in the fall issue iof the ESSES. You will see photos of some cars posted before, but I'm pretty certain none of the same photographs.

Here then are the final imagers of the '14 Pebble Beach Concpours d'Elegance which will complete this thread. I hope I'm not boring you with this, but I find it very agreeable during these cold, dreary and short days of winter to look back at the sunny, warm and elegant atmospehere and the spectacular cars displayed on the finishing green of the Pebble Beach golf course, adjacent to the Del Monte Lodge. It's a grand event and remains, in my opinion, the premier Concours in the world.

The '14 Concours was the 64th edition, was as well presented and staged as any before, and by virtue of the sensational, spectacular and quite breathtaking coup of displaying 25 Ferrari Testa Rossas, will stay with me for as long as the '88 and 2011 events, the earlier featuring all six Bugatti Royales, the latter with 21 Ferrari GTOs - plus the proto type. Planning my day at the Concours and attending this grand event has become an unbreakable personal tradition.

A few factoids about Pebble Beach, in case anyone cares. The first was held rather informally in 1950. Of the 64 Concours in total so far, 7 Best-of-Show winners were post WW II cars. Until 2014 no Ferrari had ever won Best-of-show. The winningest marque at this time is Bugatti with 9 of the French cars having been crowned "Best-of-show", followed by 7 Mercedes, with 5 Rolls-Royce examples in third place. The oldest car to win top honors was a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Tourer in '62, the newest, a '64 Maserati Mistral in '68 during the darkest era in the Concours' history when it came frighteningly close to folding altogether.

As long as I remain physically able to spend the entire day on my feet and take photos of the wondrous, historic and so often unique automobiles I will continue to attend & present them in a similar format in the hope that at least some of the memership is sufficiently interested and appreciates it enough to log on and derive pleasure from this offering.

Thanks for looking

JZG

Starting this final segment with this years' featured marque - Maserati, and ending the first set with a shot of unquestionably the most successful Maserati of all, the 250 F Grand-Prix car. This particular car, a '55 model ( Chassis # 2515 ) is one of the most historic, having competed in 39 Grands Prix.

[John Z Goriup]

So long as we are doing Italian cars, some more South-of-the-Alps cars from Maserati's lomg-term adversary, Enzo's Maranello-based Scuderia Ferrari. I have already posted the majority of my shots of the Testa Rossa display in the original post, and would now merely like to flesh out the Ferraris with the more 'mundane', but always still exotic and rare models.

Photos #2 & 3 are of Jon Shirley's '14 "Best-of-Show" winning '54 Ferrari 375MM ( Mille Miglia ) sports racer, which was re-bodied early on into the Scaglietti Coupe shown after a severe accident. I believe the reason this Ferrari won is because A. no Ferrari had ever won Best-of-Show at Pebble in spite of the many close calls in the past , and B., simply because it is in my humble opinion the first completely correctly restored significant Ferrari with known provenance and ownership history to be shown. The vast majority of Pebble Beach Ferrari entrants are usually so ludicrously over-restored, to standards & details no original Maranello product ever displayed at delivery, that they had very little credibility. This car has continuous provenance and is eminently believable and was justly rewarded in my view.

The maroon car that one could easily mistake for a Pegaso with the most un-Ferrari grill and central peak on the 'bonnet' is a '51 Vignale 212 Inter Cabriolet.

[John Z Goriup]

Continuing with the Ferraris, an entire set of 5 of the ultimate development of the spectalurarly successful Testa Rossa series of sports racers, the TRI61s. Begun in late '55 the series raced from '56 through the mid sixties, culminating with the cars shown , the '61 Ferrari 250 TRI61 Fantuzzi Spyder. Only 2 TR61s were produced and both were presented on the lawn. #10 is owned by Ralph Lauren and has two successive Sebring victories to its credit, in '61 with Phil Hill / Olivier Gendebien, and in '62 with Jo Bonnier and Lucien Bianchi. Also driven in '61 at LeMans by the Rodriguez brothers to 5th place. The other, ex-Count Volpi Serenissima collection car without racing number is presently owned by a Connecticut based collector, and won LeMans in '61 in the hands of Hill / Gendebien, which, if I remember correctly makes this the last front-engined car to ever win at Le Sarthe overall.

[John Z Goriup]

More Ferraris, starting with the REVS institute ( Miles Collier Collection )-owned #54 '48 Ferrari 166 Corsa Spyder ( photos #1 & 2 ). This is the first Ferrari ( Chassis # 016-1 ) to win a major race and the very first Ferrari to arrive in the US. Luigi Chinetti won the 12 Hours of Monthlery in it, and later that year broke the 2-liter 100 mile and 200 kilometer records at over 124 mph. In '49 Briggs Cunningham purchased this car and scored the first Ferrari US victory at the Suffolk County Airport race in '50.

The other three images are of Bruce Meyers' '57 Ferrari 625 TRC Scaglietti Spyder, one of only two such cars originally delivered with Ferrari's 2.5 liter 4-cylinder Grand Prix motor. By Ferrari's own records this was the winningest Ferrari ever, winning more class and overall wins during its active racing career than any other 'Cavallino'. Some of the prominent drivers who won in this car included Briggs Cunningham, George Arents, von Neumann, Ritchie Ginther and Ken Miles. In '58 Ferrari sent over a V-12 engine which was installed along with a new hood with the larger scoop, became known as "Von Neumann's Hot Rod" and continued winning until its racing retirement in '61.

[John Z Goriup]

Some more Ferraris, including the forerunner to the "pontoon-fendered" customer Testa Rossa series, a '54 Ferrari 250 Monza Scaglietti ( photos # 2 & 4 ). This car is the first of the four Monzas built, and was originally designed and built by PininFarina. Bought in '57 by US-based Luigi Chinetti, it was sent to Scaglietti to be re-bodied to its present configuration.

Finishing up with a styling study for a potential future Ferrari supercar, displayed in the AFAS ( Aoutomotive Fine Arts Society ) tent.

[John Z Goriup]

A set of a pair of Bugattis, starting out with a rare '37 Type 57SC Atalante (photos #1,2, 4 & 5), nota bene, not an Atlantic . After passing through the hands of several European owners, it was sold to Bill Harrah in '61, who restored it meticulously and added the supercharger, bringing it up to full SC specs. In '76 this car ( chassis # 57551 ) won Best of Show at Pebble.

[John Z Goriup]

Another set of miscellaneous cars, including three images of a particularly nice, white '53 Pegaso Z-102 Touring Spyder ( shots #2, 3 & 4 )- note the 4-cam V-8 engine, carrying a pair of the incredibly rare and damn near impossible to find four-barrel Weber carbs.