MONTEREY — Classic Car Week is right around the corner, taking place from Aug. 8-17. This year, there will be over 35 events including car shows, races and auctions, concluding with the 74th Concours d’Elegance in Pebble Beach.
As the largest county-wide event, Classic Car Week attracts upward of 100,000 visitors hoping to see classic and new cars alike. Representatives from various events came together at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Wednesday morning to give a sneak peek of what the public can expect this year.
“No two Car Weeks are ever the same,” said See Monterey CEO/President Rob O’Keefe on Wednesday. “…Car Week and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance are some of the region’s most impactful events for us in the year in terms of global significance and reach, economic impact and bringing visitors here from across the country and around the world.”
An unrestored 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports captured Best of Show at the 73rd annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. (Mason Bloom — Herald Correspondent)
Philanthropy has been a key piece of Classic Car Week since the start, with over 100 local charities benefiting from the events’ proceeds. Last year’s auctions broke world records, with the Concours d’Elegance bringing in $3.1 million in charitable donations, bringing the event’s total contributions to over $41 million since 1950.
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Hotel demand also continues to rise each year, said O’Keefe, with visitor spending totaling up to $130 million. In 2014, visitor spending impact was about $50 million.
“Visitor spending helps pay the bills,” said O’Keefe. “The dollars that they leave go to help pay for quality of life and economic development … to help pay for parks, roads and first responders, and all the things that the tourism economy contributes to overall quality of life for all of us.”
The festivities will kick off Aug. 8 with a collection of historic race cars lined up on Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey. The free event will take place from 5-7 p.m. with live music, giveaways and the chance to meet the classic cars’ drivers. The same cars will race at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca the following week from Aug. 13-16.
New at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion will be an International Race of Champions which will become a staple in the years to come. NASCAR legends Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Bobby Labonte will come together to race in their original IROC cars for the first time in Monterey and celebrate the 75th anniversary of Formula One.
A new free event this year, Woodies in the Woods will be hosted by Asilomar Conference Grounds at Grand Cypress Meadow in Asilomar on Aug. 14 from 12-5 p.m. There will be a display of 50 classic wood-paneled cars coming from the Santa Cruz Woodies club, live music, food and a beer garden featuring a limited-edition lager brewed by Other Brother Beer Co. for the occasion.
“It’s really about community engagement, doing something that’s fun, unique and allows people to understand how to enjoy this unique place that we have in our backyard,” said Alex Marin, general manager at the conference grounds.
Also new this year is The Paddock Monterey on Aug. 15, a diverse showcase of classic exotics to track legends. The event will take place at Bayonet Black Horse from 3-8 p.m. and feature a 50-car RADwood showcase. Tickets start at $75.
A Classic Car Week staple, Exotics on Broadway, will be on Aug. 16 and feature a new Vendor and Hyper Car Showcase – an enclosed, ticketed area spanning five blocks along Fremont Boulevard. The new event will feature over 40 hypercars. Since its inception in 2015, Exotics on Broadway has become Classic Car Week’s largest single-day event, drawing over 40,000 spectators.
This year’s Concours d’Elegance raised a record ammount of money for charity. (Molly Gibbs – Monterey Herald file).
Other Car Week classics including Concours d’Lemons (Aug. 16), Concorso Italiano (Aug. 16) and the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance (Aug. 14) will lead up to the coveted Concours d’Elegance on Aug. 17.
The 74th event will feature the Rolls Royce Phantom I-VI on the showfield and Phantoms VII and VIII at Concours Village, which is the first time all eight have been together in North America. This year’s annual opportunity drawing is sponsored by Infinity, Lincoln and Mercedes Benz, who donated vehicles to be raffled off on Concours Sunday. All of the proceeds from the raffle tickets will go to charity.
On the fairway, judging will begin at 8 a.m. Sunday, followed by the awards ceremony from 1:30- 5 p.m. when the best of the best will be revealed.