This year’s Monterey Car Week ended with the stunning 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn Kurier winning the Concours d’Elegance Best in Show, but that wasn’t the only headline of the week.
Big auctions, big luxury auto maker debuts, and even electrification bowed as the wild week missed 2020 due to the pandemic unfolded for well-healed auto lovers. Here are some of the great takeaways of the week.
Big auction promotion
Before Monterey Car Week, we spoke to auction houses RM Sotheby’s, Mecum and of course the official Pebble Beach auction house, Gooding & Company, and they all had similar expectations – it was going to be a great week.
And it was. The major auction houses brought in a whopping $ 343 million a week – up 37% from 2019. European automakers, especially an Italian brand, dominated the top 5 auction results:
1. 1995 McLaren F1 Coupe sold for $ 20,465,000 (Gooding & Company)
2. 1959 Ferrari 250 California LWB Competizione Spider (closed headlight) sold for $ 10,840,000 (Gooding & Company)
3. 1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato Coupe sold for $ 9,520,000 (RM Sotheby’s)
4. 1962 Ferrari 268 SP Spider sold for $ 7,705,000 (RM Sotheby’s)
5. 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Long Nose Alloy Coupe sold for $ 7,705,000 (RM Sotheby’s)
(Source: Hagerty)
Overall, the sell-through rate was a whopping 80%, with the average selling price over $ 428,004. This signals buyers who were hungry for these exotic and unique products and ready to go into bidding wars to get what they wanted.
Big debuts – and a new Countach
Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4
The move to more modern cars and even concepts didn’t disappoint Monterey Car Week. The biggest and most zippy debut was the new Countach, which came out on the car’s 50th anniversary. On its debut in Pebble Beach on Friday, the familiar wedge shape is retained, which clearly looks Countach, but has been modernized with the brand’s current styling language. And it’s a debut that customers like – with all 112 units being spoken for.
The story goes on
“In terms of sales, [the new Countach is] unbelievable and well received, we have many people who are coming to the brand with this car for the first time because they recognize it as a work of art, ”said Federico Foschini, Lamborghini’s Chief Marketing & Sales Officer, during a discussion at the round table. “We have a lot of people who have the old Countach and now they configure the car the same way.”
Rival Aston Martin had a huge presence at Monterey Car Week with its huge club house in Pebble Beach on the 18th green. Tobias Moers, CEO of Aston Martin (ARGGY), explains why they simply had to present their latest super sports car here.
Aston Martin Valkyrie (Image: Pras Subramanian)
“If you are in the ultra-luxury business, [Pebble Beach] is the right place, ”said Moers from the clubhouse’s spacious outdoor hospitality area. “The Valkyrie spider – you can reveal it here. The customer response has been incredible – and we’re working through that [wait] Listen … and the car is sold out. “
That’s right – we’re talking about a car that starts at $ 3.8 million and all 85 units are sold out. So if you want the NEXT Aston Martin supercar, you’d better put yourself on the waiting list.
Some manufacturers looked beyond the present into the future. Audi (VWAGY) dropped the hammer with its space-consuming electric concept car, Skysphere, which can actually lengthen its wheelbase and give drivers and passengers a luxurious, great-to-travel feel in autonomous and long-range cruising modes, but then can shrink and get smaller, for more spirited driving behind the wheel.
Audi skysphere concept (Image: Audi)
Why is that important? Because choice is what appeals to audiences in Pebble Beach.
“[Luxury] means being able to decide whether you want to be autonomous, whether you want to drive yourself or whether you want to experience both, ”says Mark Dahncke, Director of Communications at Audi of America.
Which then brings me to my next topic at Monterey Car Week …
electrification
Yes, Audi’s new Skysphere concept is fully electric. Let’s be honest about a future-oriented vehicle, it has to be electric. But even at the posh, old-school, car-crazed quail event on the Friday before the Concours, electric cars made their full appearance, though it appears that traditional quail-goers still want the sound, energy, and excitement that internal combustion engines provide .
One of the busiest stands was Rimac, the Croatian electric supercar company that now jointly owns Bugatti with Porsche (POAHY). Rimac brought the Nevera electric hypercar to the Quail, an electric vehicle with nearly 2,000 horsepower. This is not a typo.
The Swedish super sports car manufacturer Koenigsegg uses electrification in its latest hypercar, but with hybrid technology. The small displacement motor in the Gemera is backed by 3 electric motors that together generate an astronomical 1,703 horsepower and 2,581 lb-ft of torque, but also produce a range of nearly 600 miles. Pretty impressive even for a supercar.
“Here we are taking it to the next level, 4 seats, all-wheel drive, smaller combustion engine, greater electrification,” said founder Christian von Koenigsegg in an interview in Quail.
Christian von Koenigsegg with the quail (Image: Koenigsegg)
Koenigsegg also relies on biofuels. “We want to advance the idea [biofuels]because I think it’s a good addition to electrification, ”he said. For Koenigsegg, a hybrid powered by biofuels is the best of both worlds – you can have fun and go “green” at the same time.
“Electrification needs all this infrastructure, you have to fight for cobalt and [battery] Cells, so I think, for the environment and for the lightness of sports cars to make them more efficient, and for the fun and the sound, combined with hybrid drive and direct drive, the combustion engine is therefore a good game. ”
And this Lamborghini Countach? Well, that’s a hybrid too, and customers are interested in that too.
“In the US, Lamborghini customers understand the benefits of adding electric motors to already powerful internal combustion engines,” said Andrea Baldi, CEO of Lamborghini North America, in an interview on Yahoo Finance Live. “We expect a higher demand for more powerful Lamborghini models. Sian and Countach, for example, are the fastest B12 models in Lamborghini history, they were sold out before the public announcement – and both are hybrids. “
Aston Martin’s Tobias Moers is also interested in electrification and hybrid technology, noting that Valkyrie’s supercar, the Valhalla, is a plug-in hybrid and that Aston’s electric ambitions don’t end there. This is where Aston’s partnership with Mercedes Benz (DDAIF) pays off.
“As a company the size of Aston Martin, you need someone you can rely on for the electrical backbone of a car,” says Moers. “You can’t create your own electrical architecture, it costs a lot of money and can sometimes be an unpredictable journey.”
Moers plans to use the company’s capital expenditures to differentiate its future electric models from its competitors from the Aston Martin brand’s perspective, but rely on Mercedes’ electric drive technology to stay competitive.
Anniversary of the RUF CTR (Source: Pras Subramanian)
Finally, some ultra-low-volume boutique manufacturers like RUF have taken the electric leap in the past but are sticking to the incineration for now. Twelve years ago, under the direction of legendary Porsche fanatic Alois Ruf, RUF worked with German industrial giant Siemens (SIEGY) to produce a small number of electric RUFs called eRuf Model A with a 911 body.
Around 15 cars were built that had a range of around 300 kilometers, said Ruf. This was a huge feat over ten years ago, but the cars didn’t have the performance that Ruf or its customers wanted. “We have now established a niche for ourselves with combustion engines and see the electric car as something for the big ones,” says Ruf.
Perhaps Alois Ruf is right, and Tobias Moers says something similar. Electric is for the big boys for now – but those times could change. The bigger question is whether residents of Pebble Beach and Monterey Car Week want those EV powertrains in their ultra-exclusive dream machines.
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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him Twitter and further Instagram.
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