Monterey 2012

I like to take a summer vacation every year in August, for the past several years I have made the trip to Bonneville  for Speedweek. Last year with the shop moving and the expansion of the business I was unable to take enough time off to make the 1500 mile round trip drive to the salt flats, so I decided to take a quickie trip up the coast to Laguna Seca for the Historics. This is an incredible event where the wealthy and the very wealthy bring their vintage racing cars to Laguna and flog them around one of the most famous road racing courses in the world. It's one thing to see a 1934 Alfa Romeo grand prix car, it's another thing entirely to watch three of them wailing down the front straight at full throttle. This is an event where you can watch old race cars worth literally millions of dollars get the crap beat out of them as they were designed! 

The event itself is very unusual, it is very expensive to attend (a one day ticket cost me $90) and the pits are full of private coaches and private chefs, white linens, it's really incredible. Every year the event has a featured marque, this year was the Cobra. There were a staggering number of original Cobras there, maybe all of them as far as I know. There was way too much to photograph, here's some of my personal favorite highlights. Enjoy!

Simply beautiful.

Everything you see here is handmade. Back then when it was new, and today as well. Just look at that axle.

1934 Grand Prix technology, a double overhead cam straight 8 from Alfa Romeo.

The same car featured twin driveshafts as well. Just look at the detail.

This same Alfa had twin shaft driven superchargers. The sound alone was worth the $90 I paid to get in.

This is a mid 1950's Indy car powered by a Hilborn injected Chrysler Hemi.

Here's the Hemi!

There are also classes for later model race cars as well, here is a 1970 Dodge Challenger that was raced in the Trans Am series back then.

Not one but two Mercedes 300SL Gullwing race cars. At current market value this is about $4-5 million dollars worth of cars in this photo. They were both flogged around the track like they were just used cars.

One of the gullwing interiors.

I took this shot during the Cobra parade lap. This line went on for 20 minutes, non-stop Cobras! The gold one in front is a barn find car that was discovered a few years back and left largely as it was found.

I loved this Porsche 356, the color was perfect with the red interior.

 

 

 

 

Another Cobra, I like the BRG color especially with the magnesium Halibrands.

Not one but two late 1930's Talbot Lago Grand Prix cars.