Best in show: motoring masterpieces from Monterey Car Week 2023

If you’re looking for automotive perfection of the polished kind, then follow the beacon of gleaming chrome that lights up the Carmel coastline each August.

Once again, this year’s Monterey Car Week played host to hundreds of concours-quality cars — many rarely seen one-offs that are briefly available to pore over.

Here are some of the highlights from the manicured lawns of California’s coastal golf courses.

Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

A car built for royalty was the star of this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, which awarded top prize to a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster.

It is one of only three surviving examples, retaining its original mechanical components, and was delivered from the factory to Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, in Kabul.

Bought at last year’s RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction by collector Jim Patterson for $9.9m (£8.26m), it was restored and repainted from its previous maroon colour in time for the Concours.

“This 540K balances strength with sweeping lines and style, and its history is unique,” said Concours Chairman Sandra Button. “In talking with Jim about this car, I was impressed by the time and thought invested in this restoration. Every piece of this beautiful Mercedes-Benz was researched so carefully to honour its history.”

The supercharged straight-eight-powered car was sheltered in the Afghan embassy in Paris during World War II. It was passed to the King’s son-in-law who brought it to Britain before selling it. An American buyer shipped the car across the Atlantic in 1953.

The award moves Mercedes ahead of Bugatti in terms of overall Pebble Beach Concours wins: the German company has now had ten winners over the course of 72 shows.

A total of 216 cars from 18 countries were on display on the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links, and the Best in Show class was characteristically hotly contested.

Missing out on the main award was a 1930 Mercedes-Benz 710 SS Special Roadster, a 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Figoni Cabriolet, and a 1939 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet.

Tehama show

Exclusive is the word for Monterey Car Week shows, but even by those standards, the Clint Eastwood-owned Tehama Golf Club hosts an event that really is for a select crowd.

A group of around 200 guests gathered to view 40 sports cars at the foot of the Santa Lucia mountains; a Singer Porsche, Ford GT and Porsche 914 among the exhibits.

Also on display was a 1963 Ferrari 250GT Lusso (above); a ‘barn find’ found in a garage in nearby Santa Cruz. In the hands of the same California owner for 50 years, it was discovered after he died in 2022 and is being sold for $1.5m (£1.2m).

The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering

A one-of-a-kind Ferrari was showered in ticker-tape at the Quail: the white 410 Superamerica Superfast being named best in show at the Carmel golf club.

The futuristically-finned V12 coupe was first shown at the 1964 Paris Motor Show, where Motor Sport declared “for fierceness of modern line the Farina-bodied 4.9-litre Ferrari with pillarless windscreen really was outstanding”.

The show car even lacked windscreen pillars, although these were added when the car was sold to an American oil tycoon.

Further Superfast studies were made, each unique. The first is the only one that features the 4.9-litre Lampredi V12 engine with twin ignition and 24 spark plugs, developed from the company’s Formula 1 and sports cars.

Very little of the 335bhp was needed to power the car up the ramp at the Quail Lodge and Golf club for owner Anne Brockinton Lee to take the 2023 award.