(Bloomberg) -- Monterey Car Week is a bucket-list event for any serious car enthusiast. It has everything: modern car debuts, $30 million bespoke coaches, classic car auctions, hypercar electric vehicles, restomods, racers and everything in between.
It can also be overwhelming and exhausting. It’s tough to know where to look.
There’s no way to fully encapsulate everything to see and do if you’re there, but one no-brainer is to visit the auction houses before the main event, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Aug. 17. After all, you may not have the coin to buy your dream car, but it’s always free to admire.
You may have already heard of the $20 million Alfa Romeo that had been stolen and is now up for sale. Here are some other special cars to watch for in Monterey.
1964 Shelby 289 Cobra “Snake Charmer”
One of the most historically significant 289 Cobras on the planet almost didn’t come to be. That’s because Hank Williams, who owned the car from 1965 to his death in 2023 at the age of 99, had really wanted a Corvette.
But when the decorated World War II hero visited his local Chevrolet dealership in Los Angeles, the racist salespeople there refused to acknowledge him, let alone sell him one. So he drove to the closest Ford dealership in Pomona, where a friendly salesman sold him a Shelby 289 Cobra in princess blue.
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A sports car manufactured by British company AC Cars, Cobras were already being produced in the United Kingdom when, in 1962, American automotive designer Carroll Shelby worked with the company to create his own souped-up version with a Ford V8 engine under the hood. This was one such car.
It was love at first sight, and for the next 60 years, Williams drove his Cobra to work as a USC Medical Center ambulance driver and, later, dispatcher during the week, and he raced it on the weekends. He entered more than 400 races in his lifetime, winning the respect and friendship of fellow drivers including Shelby, who signed the dashboard. He also modified the Cobra to his taste, adding a removable roof, a hood scoop and five-spoke wheels; retrimming the interior in red naugahyde; and installing sway bars. He repainted it in silver mink, a shade it retains today.
The “Snake Charmer” Cobra, Lot 341 at RM Sotheby’s, is now owned by the Hank Williams Trust. It has Williams’ name on the original 1965 title with the original envelope and is accompanied by its original build sheet, sales form and memorabilia, including race trophies and a “Snake Charmer” Cobra team shirt. The car retains its numbers-matching body and engine, with a perfect kiss of patina, because it has never been restored.
A spokesperson for RM Sotheby’s declined to estimate a value for the vehicle. But there are similar reference points. Earlier this year, the auction house sold a similar 1963 Shelby 289 Cobra—the first one—for $1.2 million at a sale in Phoenix.
1985 Porsche 959 “Vorserie”
When Porsche engineers got the OK to develop a modern race car in the early 1980s, they had carte blanche to create the absolute pinnacle of style, performance and technology. The company desperately needed something distinct and exciting that would stand up to the wild designs coming out of Ferrari, Lamborghini and other Italian companies at the time. It needed a car that would be on the posters in teenagers’ bedrooms worldwide.
So the engineers created the 959, an ultra-advanced machine for the time that housed new technologies such as sequential turbochargers, adjustable suspension, intelligent four-wheel-drive, Kevlar body panels and lightweight magnesium wheels. Top speed was a mind-bending 197 mph, making the model the world’s fastest street-legal production car when it was released in 1986.
Ferdinand Piëch—the grandson of company founder Ferdinand Porsche and fearsome eventual head of Volkswagen AG—loved it. That’s lucky, because the massive overspending it took to create the beast had almost wrecked the still small company.
Piëch took ownership of this early 959 Prototype in March 1986. The car was finished in Grand Prix white over a dark gray cloth interior to “Komfort” specifications, with unique features such as a single wing mirror and a fuel-filler cap sealed by the bonnet. It also has rear seats, rear fender ducts and front fenders without pop-up headlight washers (different from a normal 959).
Even though it was a prototype, Piëch loved the car so much he used it for his private vehicle, driving it daily until 1987 when he sold it with almost 37,000 miles to his friend and noted chef Hasi Unterberger, who in turn sold it to the famous automotive photographer René Staud in 1992.
The car, Lot 259 at RM Sotheby’s, is one of only five surviving V-series 959 prototypes and the only pre-series example documented and photographed by its factory-assigned 959 test driver, Dieter Röscheisen. In 2013 a similar one sold at auction for $737,000. This one’s current estimated value is $1.8 million to $2.3 million.
1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider by Scaglietti
Ferraris are the pinnacle blue chips of the car worlds, and the 250 GT SWB (short wheelbase) California Spiders are among the most coveted. Ferrari developed them at the request of California dealers and drivers who wanted a true “streetable” race car—something both comfortable and fast to drive to the track, race, then drive home. Only 56 of them were made, and they were so celebrated they attracted glamorous buyers such as Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot; Johnny Hallyday; Roger Vadim; and the Aga Khan.
This one in particular is special because it’s the first 250 GT SWB California Spider ever built and the car Ferrari displayed at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show. John Gordon Bennett, a British racing driver residing in Geneva, bought it new; its current and only fifth owner has held it since 2008.
It’s offered with its factory-built competition-specification engine, covered headlights and original removable hardtop. A rarity in the car world, it retains its original color of grigio and is Ferrari Classiche Red Book-certified as fully numbers-matching, retaining its original engine, gearbox, rear axle and bodywork.
Lot 346 at RM Sotheby’s has never before been offered publicly for sale; the auction catalog describes it as “without question among the most significant 250 GT SWB California Spiders.” It has an estimated value of $16 million to $18 million.
Singers Have Their Day
This year attendees to the Monterey auctions will see the first major grouping of the Porsche restomods known as Singers to be sold live and in public. (Sales platform Bring a Trailer has made a decent business selling a couple a year online, generally for around $1 million each.) Singers are restomods: They take the bodies of old Porsches and add new components and styling to them. Gooding & Co. will offer a 1991 Porsche Reimagined by Singer DLS ($3 million to $4 million) and a 1990 Porsche Reimagined by Singer “Pompano Beach” ($1.1 million to $1.3 million). RM Sotheby’s will have a 1991 Porsche Reimagined by Singer Classic ($900,000 to $1.2 million).
Of the three, the DLS (or dynamics and lightweight study) is the most significant, because the unique coupe with only 195 miles on it has a naturally aspirated, air-cooled flat-six engine developed with Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd. But the group on the whole is notable because it represents a slice of a market currently being underserved, says Tom Wagner, co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management LLC and an investor in Singer. The current push for electric vehicles has only served to increase enthusiasts’ appetite for increasingly scarce manual-gearbox, internal combustion, roaring and rumbling sports cars such as these, he said on a Bloomberg Hot Pursuit! podcast.
These examples indicate that some Singer owners are ready to offload the cars in favor of something different. The group will be the first to test the aftermarket for these expensive builds in such a public way. Time will tell whether they beat their estimates.
Queen Elizabeth’s Defenders
These rigs aren’t for sale, but for any fan of the British royal family—and Defender fanciers everywhere—they are worth a look.
During the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Aug. 18, Land Rover will display 10 models used by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, including some from the royal household private collection, from Land Rover Classic and the British Motor Museum, and from other private collections.
Notable among them are two of the earliest known Royal Land Rover vehicles: the Land Rover Series I State Review truck that accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on a six‑month tour of the Commonwealth; and a Land Rover Series I initially ordered by King George VI and used by Queen Elizabeth II and other royal family members at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
Others to be shown are a 1966 Land Rover Series IIa station wagon driven by the queen, the first station wagon of its kind with a six‑cylinder engine and special features such as leather seats, a wooden dog guard (remember the corgis!) and side steps. Also on view are a 1983 Defender 110 V8 used by the queen at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, and the queen’s favorite in later years, a 2009 Range Rover that she often drove herself, according to Land Rover.
All 10 vehicles will line the 17th fairway during the concours and be accessible for everyone in attendance. The automaker will also host a British garden party for invited guests adjacent to the display in celebration of the vehicles.
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