"The Most Important Car Show Of America"

Monterey Car Week runs high on passion

Every August, droves of car collectors gather for a week on the Monterey Peninsula to show off, ogle, and place big-money bids, all culminating in an elaborate Sunday afternoon car show: the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Ladies wear complicated hats and men don pastel seersucker suits for the golf course occasion. It’s an ostentatious display that seems distant, even out of step with the concerns and circumstances of the outside world.

But Monterey Car Week also might be the most important luxury car show in America.

I’ve been going to Pebble Beach on and off for the past decade, and it serves as a barometer for the current state of car passion. While automakers invest in CES to show off investments in new technology, and use auto shows to churn out business announcements, Pebble Beach is where cars take center stage. It’s a measure of how influential customers receive new products and celebrate the pedigree of old ones.

Trends, features, and styles are introduced in luxury cars that eventually make it into mass-market brands. And because the crowd at Pebble Beach adores cars, people are not discreet about showing their enthusiasm for what’s hot and what’s not. Outside of formal events, parking lots around town become impromptu car shows and Instagramable moments. Collector Michael Fux customized an over-the-top purple Rolls-Royce Dawn that drew a constant crowd at the Inn at Spanish Bay. He also showed an identical hue in a Fux Fuchsia McLaren 720s. Of course, Tesla Model S sightings were frequent around town.