Concorso Italian-o

August 19, 2005

Ok...I admit it.  I pulled into Monterey with a squeaking rear brake pad, which turned out to be down to the metal.  Sheeeeeesh!  What a knucklehead I am.  I did a visual of the outer pads, but since I didn't pull the wheels off to clean the spokes this year (good excuse, eh?) I didn't catch the inners.  Buddy Jim bailed my butt out by finding the pads locally (brake supply in Seaside -- more info later) for -- get this -- $23!!  One hour later they were installed and I was on my way to Christies.

Christies was fun, but the danged Breadvan didn't sell.  As Mark from Christies said...  "After ALL that work!"  Oh well, it was fun sitting next to the guy who bought the Talbot for a "well bought" $3.1mil.  Nice to see that somebody's got loads of bread.  (bread...breadvan...get it?)  :-|

My favorite -- by far -- was the wicked and totally beautiful Nembo Spyder:

A Tom Meade creation, the bidding was strong and I believe it sold for over estimate (or at least over $1mil).  Overall the auction was ok, but a number of cars "passed."

Next morning Concorso was a blast.  Jeff and I got out "early" (8am?) and beat a lot of traffic.  I hear it was bad later.  Here's my 400 next to Jack's stunning machine, along with his very handy umbrella/table setup.  (Thanks again, buddy!)

On the left is Jeff and me standing next to Jack's gorgeous red 400GT 2+2.  Middle photo is my 400, and on the right is Jorge's beautiful 400 (complete with minor dent in the fender by some stupid idiot in a gas station) and Steve Lindsay's 350 straight ahead, surrounded by a bunch of very interested folks.

The Gallardo concept car was cool, but the Lamborghini of Orange County girls were...well...they were...woo! woo!!!  :-D

Went for a walk with Greg Dahlan and his friends along with Jeff and took some pix...

Umm...I'm not sure what was up with Cowboy Exner ...  but he certainly had a nice white hat to match his nice white car.

I was really excited to see this Ferrari 250 GTL (Lusso) with Fantuzzi body and mods by Tom Meade:

I ended up talking to the owner, Mark Robinson, for a while.  He said that he called Tom Meade to get some background on the car (which he once owned and modified) and Meade said "sure, for $5000...cash or money order."  :-O

For those of you who don't know Tom Meade's work, here's a great example:

Say what you like about it, I've always thought it was pretty darned cool!

Back at the Lambos:

Good to see such a strong VLG turnout.  There's David Fox's lp400, which was asked to drive across the ramp, and on the right is Aaron and Charles talking about distributors and carbs...no doubt!  (can you spot Jim Kaminski??  Hint: first photo.)

Miuras!  Miuras!  Miuras!

And one very, very happy baby.  :)

Back at Dave's house (thanks Dave!) -- a couple of neat angles of the 400...

That's all, Folks!

~o0o~