Shifting Gears

This pandemic sucker-punched all of us. In the past 30 days, the collector-car world has gone from hoping that things might stay the same to realizing they are changed forever. The cancellation of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the Queen Mother of all car events, sent a clear signal. Is our future uncertain? Yes. Are…

“Despite the challenges we all face today, we believe the Pebble Beach Concours will be able to take place on August 16, as originally scheduled…” The email from the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance selection committee arrived like a flashing beacon in my inbox. It was an early sign that there is a New Normal ahead.…

I broke “The Draneas Rules.” Again. Our “Legal Files” columnist, John Draneas, constantly says that you should never buy a car without an inspection — and you should never send money to someone you don’t know (for a refresher, see this month’s column on p. 48). After willfully and intentionally disregarding both these maxims, I…

On January 1, vintage-car tribes gather in the early morning darkness. From snow-covered Montana to sunny San Diego, old-car lovers prepare to “start the new year right” with a cruise in a classic. For more than two decades, the local “Round-Fender Volvo Club” has hosted a New Year’s Day run. Organized by longtime SCMer Dean…

I’m thinning the SCM collection. My mentor Martin Swig once said, “We don’t choose the cars, the cars choose us.” As I prepare to send these cars on to their next caretaker, I reflect about how each car chose me and came into my life. Why now? I just have too many cars and not…

I’ve been driving something for as long as I can remember. It started with the blue-and-white pedal car my grandfather got me when I was 3 years old. Soon enough I had a Hawthorne 20-inch single-speed coaster-braked bicycle. We ordered it from the Montgomery Ward catalog and picked it up from their local store —…

I first met Gary Bartlett at a small gathering of Americans participating in the Mille Miglia in 1992. We were in the small town of Soragna, near Brescia, Italy. Longtime SCMer Joe Tomasetti organized the dinner. This was before the “MM” became a bucket-list event for wealthy enthusiasts from all over the world. There were few…

For the first time in 31 years, I missed Monterey Car Week. On the weekend before the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, I can usually be found leading a ragamuffin “Catch Me If You Can” group of sports-car fanatics on a road trip down the Pacific Coast from Portland, OR, to Carmel. It’s SCM’s annual Caravan…

Steven Harris was a modern-day Herbert von Karajan, conducting the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s “Lohengrin” in downtown Baker City, OR. Two by two, he brought forward and arranged the multi-colored array of Porsches outside the Geiser Grand Hotel, which is located on the historic Oregon Trail. Harris, a noted Porsche collector and New York City-based…

A red 1972 Chevrolet Impala convertible was the very first car I bought at an auction. It was 1995. My then-wife Cindy Banzer and I drove seven hours north from Portland to Bob LeFlufy’s AutoClassic auction in Vancouver, B.C. Alexandra, just 4 years old, accompanied us. “LeFluf,” since deceased, was a classic-car raconteur, the Canadian equivalent…