If you’ve got gasoline in your blood, and live in an area with four seasons of weather, it’s easy to tell when Spring has arrived. Suddenly all the vehicle maintenance projects you’ve been putting off since last October rear up and demand attention. Terminals are cleaned and batteries charged, oil […]
Author: Keith Martin
Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 30 years. As a writer, publisher, television commentator and enthusiast, he is constantly on the go, meeting collectors and getting involved in their activities throughout the world. He is the founder and publisher of the monthly Sports Car Market, now in its 33rd year. Keith has written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications, is an emcee for numerous concours, and had his own show, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity.
He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrman Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame and more.
He is on the boards of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar's Award.
Buicks and Pontiacs and Alfas, Oh My
General Motors recently announced that it has purchased 20% of Fiat Auto, and that Fiat has, in return, purchased 5% of GM. Buried in the body of an article in the Wall Street Journal was the following statement: “In the U.S., where Fiat hasn’t played for years, the two are […]
Ferraris & Blue Jeans
We’ve been using our 330 America as a daily driver. Picking up our daughter, Alexandra, from elementary school and taking her to gymnastics. (“Daddy, are you going to drive me in the noisy red car today?”) Going shopping. Running errands. A 29-gallon aquarium, perfect for rearing Apistogramma agassizi cichlids, fits […]
A Golden Age of Sports Cars
As we write this, we have just returned from the Detroit International Auto Show, and are preparing to make a quick turnaround and head to the four-auction carnival in Arizona. If one had to choose between the two places, certainly the baking heat of January in the Southwest would win […]
A Collector Car Oasis
The American collector car auction year has just two seasons. One is the end-of-summer Monterey Historic extravaganza, with six months worth of activities crammed like a pkzipped computer file into 96 crazy hours. The trends we saw in Monterey boded well for the market, with high selling rates from all […]
Slick At Last
After twelve years and 144 issues, SCM has gone slick. Printing on coated stock allows us to reproduce black and white photos at a much higher level of quality, and the increased number of full-color editorial pages will enhance the market information in every issue. Even better, we can begin […]
Big Bear to Big Apple
From Imogene Pass, snow-covered at 13,114-feet in the Rockies, to the sea-level canyons of Manhattan, it was a busy month. First, taking a break from the world of vintage cars courtesy of Land Rover, I had the opportunity to drive a Range Rover across the Colorado Rockies. We passed through […]
A $45 Million Fireworks Display
Monterey this year was a three-day auction-block fireworks show, with 228 of 286 cars that crossed the block selling for a 79% rate and a sales total of just over $45 million. We’ll have a complete report in next month’s issue, but our first reaction is that while the overall […]
Bonneville, Bugattis and Gruel
As you read this, I will be hurtling across the Bonneville Salt Flats in a highly modified 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider, in an attempt to set a few class Land Speed Records. Mike Besic and Craig Beilat will share the driving as we take turns flinging ourselves at a variety […]
Car Collecting in the 21st Century
Isn’t it time to give the Monterey weekend an official name? Let’s get the folks from Pebble Beach, Concorso Italiano, the auctions and Laguna Seca together and keep them sequestered until the white smoke from the chimney indicates they’ve chosen something that encompasses the myriad activities that go on. It […]