Down Memory Lane

Photo courtesy Rolex/Tom O’Neal

SCMers pay tribute to the 75th Anniversary of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

Miles Collier

When I was a small person, my year used to revolve around events of personal gratification and acquisitiveness. You know, the big duo, birthday and Christmas. And, to my surprise there are still such events today, with Pebble Beach being at the very center of the calendar’s rotation. It is a time of acquisition and gratification again, but now one of acquiring experiences and memories, and gratification of my automotive-focused urges.

A particularly piquant pleasure is the Thursday Tour of Elegance, where the broad range of automotive confections to be judged on Sunday are assembled for initial inspection by the experts and the not-so-expert. It is a continuing source of my amusement to pick the Best of Show from among the lines of fabulous and exotic machinery. The hopeful owners display their best attempted sang-froid demeanor, all the while hoping that they will occupy the golden-confetti-strewn awards ramp Sunday afternoon.

Another presents-under-the-Christmas-tree moment is when almost all the cars have been placed on the lawn, and the sun is casting golden tones on what is still a largely unpopulated scene. Never do old cars look so exotic, and the sky so blue. For the first time the grandness of the display becomes apparent. Now, we get to stop and examine that masterpiece that we haven’t seen before, or to take in a well-known old competitor.

After 30 years or more, the memory of that idyllic scene of fabulous cars draws my mind back to the pivot of the year, Before Pebble and After Pebble.

Miles Collier is a prominent collector and founder of the Revs Institute in Naples, FL, which houses a collection of over 100 historical, exceptional automobiles as well as an extensive archive.

Chip Connor

My journey began on a motorcycle. It was the late 1960s, and I had just arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area for college after having been born and raised in Japan. New to life in the U.S., I defined cluelessness. I arrived with a suitcase, a 1968 Honda CB450, and not the faintest familiarity with the campus zeitgeist. I knew nobody, and while cars held a special fascination for me, I knew little about them.

I did, however, know motorcycles. And thus, on a sunny Saturday afternoon in 1969, I rode my CB450 to a place called Monterey. I was utterly captivated. The sparkling Monterey Bay, the trees — pine, cypress, and redwood — left me in awe. Only the luckiest people, I thought, could ever live in a place as fabulous as this. Unknown to me at the time, that bucolic enclave known as Pebble Beach would loom large in my life for the next 50 years.

I have not missed the event since 1983.

While I didn’t know it at the time, I started attending the concours during the era when the event rose to global preeminence under the ministrations of Jules Heumann and Lorin Tryon. I came to know them both, as I did Glenn Mounger and Sandra Button, under whose stewardship the event continued to thrive.

I showed my first car, a 1931 Cord L-29 cabriolet, in 1987. I was thunderstruck when I won Best of Show in 1997 with my 1937 Talbot Lago Teardrop. It was not expected. And therein lay a lesson I have never forgotten. While I’ve collected over 30 Pebble Beach awards over the years, so too have I walked away with nothing. By managing my personal expectations and immersing myself in the people and cars I would not otherwise see, the Pebble Beach Concours continues to be one of the most uplifting experiences I’ve enjoyed in life, a journey that began as a teenager on a motorcycle.

Chip Connor has served on the board of a number of organizations involved with vintage automobiles, including the Petersen Automotive Museum, and was a member of the governing Senate of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) for four years.

Ken Gross

I’ve been a Pebble Beach Judge for 36 years and a Selection Committee member since that group’s inception. Chairman Sandra Button has graciously let me help co-curate many unusual classes: Tatra, Tucker, Moretti, Miller Racing Cars, Ford GT40s, Porsche 917s, Sport Classics, wedge-shaped concept cars and more. They’re a far cry from the classic Delages, Delahayes and Duesenbergs that traditional Pebble enthusiasts love.

But the special classes that I enjoy the most are historic hot rods. The mere thought of hot rods on the lawn was anathema for years. Over time, Bruce Meyer was able to convince organizers Lorin Tryon and Jules Heumann that authentic hot rods with dry-lakes racing history or custom-built cars covered in period magazines were worthy of consideration. The hot-rod culture gave a start to racing drivers such as Phil Hill, Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby. The custom-car scene made builders like George Barris, Dean Jeffries and Gene Winfield well-known names.

Bruce had eligible hot rods he wanted to enter, so it happily fell to me to curate the classes. John Clinard helped with Ford Motor Company sponsorship of the Dean Bachelor Award for the most significant historic entry. A respected writer, Dean had been both a hot-rod and a Ferrari guy. That paved the way, beginning in 1997, for subsequent classes of ’32 Ford roadsters and coupes; competition hot rods that raced sports cars, like Duffy Livingstone’s “Eliminator” and the “Stovebolt Special”; pre-war custom cars; and an entire class of 1949-to-1951 chopped Mercury customs, with the James Dean Mercury from “Rebel Without a Cause” and the sensational ex-Bob Hirohata Merc, restored by the very guys who built it. We’ve featured hot rod cover cars, like Norm Grabowski’s legendary “Kookie Kar,” a flamed T-bucket that starred in TV’s “77 Sunset Strip,” and Ed Roth’s zany “Outlaw,” from the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Ken Gross has curated the popular Historic Hot Rod classes since they began in 1997. Ross Myers’ “Kookie Kar” T-bucket from TV’s “77 Sunset Strip” won the class in 2019.

The concours field has been expanded; people are seeking out eligible cars to restore, and we’re just getting started.

KEN Gross served as Executive Director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and his 16 critically acclaimed auto exhibitions have drawn record crowds at major fine-art museums nationwide.

Bruce Meyer

Hard to believe, but I’ve been attending the Pebble Beach Concours since 1974, the first year of the Monterey Historic Races. That’s over 50 years! Back then, for me, it was more a curiosity to see the elegant Rolls-Royces, Packards, Duesenbergs and Pierce Arrows lined up on the lawn with the admiring hoi polloi. I could never imagine my involvement at any level — just not my “thing.”

Fast-forward 15 years, in the late 1980s, and I entered our Duesenberg and won First in Class. At that moment I had “arrived.” Since that time, I’ve entered about every car we’ve owned (and now pretty well run out of new material).

I guess what resonates with me when I hear “Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance” is how the show has continued to evolve and stay relevant.

I grew up in SoCal — Hollywood, to be exact — and my early visions of important historic cars were Hot Rod magazine cover cars! So, in 1997, after I became an annoying pest amid much lobbying, Jules Heumann and Lorin Tryon (the gatekeepers of the concours at the time) humored me and allowed a class for historic hot rods. That pivotal moment changed the show forever and set the stage for open-minded relevancy.

When one carefully looks back over the past 75 years and follows the trends at the Pebble Beach Concours, you can observe automotive-design direction and see where collecting has been and where it’s headed. For me, it’s been a ride I could have never imagined. Last year, winning the only non-car trophy — the Lorin Tryon Award — was life-changing.

Bruce Meyer is the Founding Chairman of the Petersen Automotive Museum

Glenn Mounger

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is a very special event. Of course, the cars make the event, but for me it’s always been the people that make it special. Everyone, from the volunteers and staff members to the owners who have dedicated their time and resources for this one day, to the legends of racing and participants from all over the world — we’re all humbled by the gathering of these grand and artful automobiles.

Certainly, during my decades of participation, I have individual memories of special cars and memorable people such as Phil Hill, Strother MacMinn and Stirling Moss, but ultimately my fondest memories are of the families who display a restored family heirloom for the first time, the middle-aged collector who excitedly tells me, “I’ve been coming here for years and never dreamed I would show a car but here I am,” or the 30-year judge who tells me the same thing every year: “This might be the best show ever.” It’s a community of like-minded people with a passion for beauty and friendly competition. As I’ve seen more than a few times, competing car owners in the same class will often help get another car started or offer a fuse so a competitor doesn’t lose a point.

Ultimately, my best memories come from the convivial manner and delight in the diverse interests, passions, and giving nature offered by the people who make the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance a memorable experience for everyone in attendance.

Glenn Mounger is the Chairman Emeritus of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and also serves among the directors or advisers of the Classic Car Club of America Museum, the LeMay Museum and the National Automobile Museum.