Lotus Cars
For the world’s leading marque’s, automotive auction houses, and collectors alike, Northern California’s Monterey Car Week is the undisputed center stage to showcase the most important automobiles, whether it be bygone-era benchmarks on the concours lawn, icons crossing the block, or debuts of the latest exotics. And much like the always daunting assignments that launched every Mission Impossible installment, our admittedly self-imposed task, which we chose to accept, was to pick the 10 top cars from all of the nearly 50 different events during the recent eight days in August.
Among the hunting grounds were the Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, and the headline lots presented by the likes of Bonhams, RM Sotheby’s, Gooding & Company, and Broad Arrow. Of course, nothing on the list could be finalized until after the famed Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. As for our highly subjective selections? Mission accomplished.
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Zenvo Aurora
Image Credit: Howard Walker Denmark may be best known for Lego blocks, swirly pastries, and Hans Christian Andersen, but that might soon change if Zenvo has anything to say about it. The Danish hypercar builder has been cranking out insanely powered rocket ships since 2007. At the Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, we watched in awe as the silk was pulled off Zenvo’s most impressive offering yet, the wild-looking Aurora.
Powered by a custom, mid-mounted 6.6-liter, quad-turbo hybrid V-12 developed by Mahle—a longtime Ferrari engineering partner—it packs 1,250 hp as it revs to a 9,800 rpm redline. Zenvo plans to offer the Aurora in two guises, the four-wheel-drive Tur, designed more for road-going comfort, and the track-focused, rear-drive Agil (shown here), with prices starting at $2.8 million.
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1939 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet
Image Credit: Kimball Studios We conjured up dreamy images of piloting this spectacular drop-top cabriolet, with its voluptuous, teardrop bodywork by French artisans Figoni et Falaschi, along the Cote d’Azur to break the bank in Monte Carlo. Long part of the collection housed at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, Calif., this exquisite Delahaye was built to represent France at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Interestingly, the plan was for it to have a 4.5-liter Delahaye V-12 racing engine under that mile-long hood. But delays meant that the car was shipped and shown sans engine. Lost for years, the chassis resurfaced in Honolulu in the late 1980s, with Peter Mullin acquiring it. Amazingly, he then tracked down the original engine in France and reunited the two. Not surprisingly, it won its class at Pebble. It certainly got our vote.
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Ford Mustang GTD
Image Credit: Kimball Studios, courtesy of Ford Motor Company. The best quote from the entire Monterey Car Week had to be the one from Jim Farley, Ford’s president and CEO, describing the new 800 hp Mustang GTD: “It’s a sophisticated techno badass.” We can’t argue with that. Here is the road-going version of Ford’s upcoming GT3 race car that will take the Blue Oval back to Le Mans next summer.
With its carbon-fiber-clad body, bulging fenders, and Formula 1–style rear wing, it looks as if it was hitting 200 mph standing still. But it’s the technology under the skin that’s so cool; like the adaptive inboard suspension and dry-sump, supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 mated to a rear-mounted eight-speed transaxle. Ford plans to build 2,000 examples, with pricing kicking off at around $300,000.
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Lamborghini Espada Rat Rod
Image Credit: Tom O’Neal, courtesy of Rolex. A major sideshow of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the can’t-miss Concept Car Lawn. In front of the fabled Pebble Beach Lodge, automakers show off their hottest new debuts. This year, Lamborghini’s all-electric Lanzador concept shared the manicured grass with VW’s I.D. Buzz and John Hennessey’s all-carbon Venom F5 Revolution. But arguably the biggest jaw-dropper was the apocalyptic 1968 Lamborghini Espada Rat Rod built by France’s Danton Art Kustoms.
Looking like an extra from the film Mad Max: Fury Road, it was completed back in 2018 to celebrate the Espada’s 50th anniversary. With its red-painted wheels mounted way outside the body, the monstrous reimagining of the Espada spans 8 feet, 2 inches in width. Fully exposed for the world to see is its mirror-polished 3.9-liter V-12. This is one vehicle guaranteed to either win you friends at the next Cars and Coffee, or elicit a restraining order.
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Aston Martin DB12 Volante
Image Credit: Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC Ensconced in the cockpit of Aston’s newly unveiled DB12 Volante at the Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, we had to have our fingers pried from the hand-stitched leather wheel in order to get us to exit. Fondling the diamond-quilted leather covering the center console, listening to the 15-speaker, 1,170-watt Bowers & Wilkins audio, we were in convertible heaven.
This is a thing of true beauty, a car to head south on Pacific Coast Highway for lunch in Big Sur. Yes, the $1.5 million V-12-powered Aston Valour, parked next to the DB12 Volante at the Aston display, is a collector’s dream. But to some observers, it looks too much like a Mustang. The DB12, though, is all style and open-top elegance. And it’s powerful too, with its 671 hp, mid-mounted 4.0-liter V-8 engine. Moneypenny, hop in, and let’s go.
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Mercedes-AMG GT
Image Credit: Howard Walker Resplendent in a spectacular Windex-like hue named Hyper Blue Mango, the second-generation Mercedes-AMG GT had its first public showing on the Pebble Beach Concept Lawn. Some might say it’s a watered-down, hardtop version of the original, blunt-instrument GT, on account of it sharing its platform with the new Mercedes SL. Heck, it even has a back seat.
Yet it’s been fully honed by the gearheads at AMG to compete more effectively with Porsche’s standard-setting 911. Gone, though, is the original GT’s front-mid-engine placement; now the hand-built 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8—with either 469 hp or 577 hp, depending on option selected—sits right up front. Will the changes dilute the GT’s character? We longed to drive it off the lawn to find out.
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Lotus Type 66
Image Credit: Howard Walker We lost count of the number of times we cruised past the Lotus display at the Quail just to gaze, once more, at the glorious new-old Lotus Type 66 racer that the storied British sports-car builder had just unveiled. It’s a great story this; back in 1970, Lotus had thoughts of entering Can-Am racing here in the U.S., but never did. Now, to mark Lotus’s 75th anniversary, the company has taken the original drawings and created a modern-day interpretation of the Can-Am Lotus that might have been.
Painted in the heritage-inspired livery of red, white, and gold, this Type 66 features a full carbon-fiber body over an extruded aluminum chassis and computer-developed aero. Output will be from a Lotus-tuned V-8 producing over 800 hp. Just 10 examples of these track monsters will be built, each priced at around $1.3 million. Oh, to hear it roar.
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Kode61 Birdcage
Image Credit: Okuyama Design While Maserati grabbed the headlines at the Quail with its track-only, 730 hp MCXtrema projectile, the car we wanted to drive off in was another Maserati, well, of sorts. The exquisitely crafted Kode61 Birdcage, from Japanese designer and low-volume builder Ken Okuyama (shown driving), is an open two-seater that pays road-going tribute to the 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 racer.
Like the original, nicknamed the Birdcage on account of its intricate pipework chassis, the Kode61 features a shiny, chrome-tube spaceframe, but this time clad with carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic panels, with power from a 396 hp, 4.2-liter Maserati V-8. For the right price, Okuyama will happily build you one as well.
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1967 Ferrari 412P Berlinetta
Image Credit: Bonhams Going once, going twice, sold—for $30 million. This was the auction star of Monterey Car Week 2023, a stunning sports-prototype racing Ferrari, with the richest of histories, driven by some of the legends of motorsport. Auction house Bonhams dropped the gavel on this 1967 Ferrari 412P Berlinetta, with its achingly gorgeous bodywork by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Fantuzzi.
In its first year of competition, with the likes of Richard Attwood, Piers Courage, David Piper, and Jo Siffert behind the wheel, the 412P gained valuable points that helped Ferrari win that year’s World Championship title. Before the auction, the racer—fit with a 4.0-liter V-12—had emerged from an exhaustive nine-year restoration. Let’s hope that the price paid doesn’t stop the new owner from exercising the car in future classic events.
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1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster
Image Credit: Kimball Studios Describe automotive beauty in five words or less. How about Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster? Among cascading confetti, this black-and-chrome creation rightly took the coveted “Best of Show” award at the 2023 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Built in 1937 for the Shah of Afghanistan, it was hidden away in the country’s French embassy during World War II, the shipped to the U.S.
Stateside, seven decades later, Kentucky collector Jim Patterson bought it at auction in 2022, and despite it having just 13,000 miles on the odometer, a total nut-and-bolt restoration was commissioned. See it in the metal and it looks beyond spectacular, with its sweeping fenders, endless hood, and flowing tail. And a round of applause for Mercedes here; with the 540K, the marque celebrates its 10th Best of Show in Pebble’s 72 years, which is more than any other automaker to date.