Shifting Gears

Concours d’Elegance is just a fancy name for a fancy car show with fancy awards. Whether it’s the weekly Beaches Cruisin’, which draws 1,500 vintage cars and thousands of gearheads every Wednesday all summer long in Portland, or the rarified air that surrounds the multi-million-dollar cars at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance — car shows…

The invitation came on a Monday, from Luigi Orlandini of Canossa Events Srl. “Would you like to spend two days in Modena, learning about the restoration program Modena Classic Works, tour both Ferrari museums and drive some classic Ferraris on the Modena Circuit? The event starts this Friday, so you would have to leave from…

We just put 1,611 delightful miles on our 1965 Giulia Spider Veloce. It was our first real road trip in years, and it brought home the reasons we fool around with these old cars. The occasion was the Alfa Romeo National Convention, held in Rohnert Park, CA, south of Santa Rosa. Good friend Doug Hartman…

I’ve never counted the number of cars that have passed through my garage over the past four decades, but they’ve numbered in the hundreds. They’ve ranged from mundane 1965 MGBs to exquisite Maserati 3500 GTs. Sometimes there have been 20 cars at my place, other times just one. Fishing for my acquisitions (I hesitate to…

If the collector-car market were a cappuccino, its frothy foam would spill over the sides of the cup and cascade to the tabletop like a miniature Niagara Falls. Is there a major auction that doesn’t set a few world records? Even Toyotas are now worth more than a million dollars. Well, not all Toyotas. As…

Dear Keith: Now that I’ve purchased the SCM Volvo 1800ES and it’s on the way to my garage, I’d like to ask your opinion on a 356C sunroof coupe that’s been offered to me. I’ve taken a quick look at it, and it appears to be a really nice older restoration, holding up well. There…

We’ve seen more gators than ducks or beavers recently, as we’ve spent 20 of the past 30 days in Florida, with our home state of Oregon becoming more of an imagined entity than a place. We had barely unpacked our bags from our February trip to Rétromobile when it was time for another early-morning taxi…

Just weeks ago I was toodling through the Arizona desert, sneaking away from the auctions for a quick drive to Sedona in a lovely dark blue Aston Martin V8 Vantage. I was seeking a brief respite from the ceaseless shattering of world records at the auctions being held, where one high sale after another was…

I remember clearly when I decided to launch the Alfa Romeo Market Letter. It was 1988, and the market was beginning to heat up. I had recently left my day job as a manager of Ron Tonkin’s Gran Turismo in Portland, OR, where I sold Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfa Romeos and Lotuses. I devoured the various…

As this is our December issue, it’s the right time to reflect on the past 12 months, and to project forward into 2013. Sports Car Market is by design a reflective magazine; we report on sales and events that have happened, and analyze and comment on them. Our world is large and all-inclusive, as we…