Vintage racing enthusiasts converge on Laguna Seca racetrack in Monterey, California the middle weekend in August every year for the Monterey Vintage Historics. These three days of gearhead nirvana are not to be missed, if you can figure out a way to afford the time away from work and the amount of money it takes to obtain a three-day pass.
I've been to this event maybe 10 times over the last 20 years. I've slept in a three-man tent with a buddy and his wife in the racetrack's infield. I've stayed in a Motel 6 with a Kiwi bloke after giving myself severe heartburn from a Sizzler restaurant all-you-can-eat salad bar (it doesn't pay to eat too much). I've stayed with my brother and Dad in the Carmel Valley Ranch Resort, where I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven. The one constant is -- the Monterey Vintage Historics are always a spectacle of the world's finest vintage racing machinery-doing battle on one of the coolest racetrack's in the United States.
This year, my brother Kevin and I spent race day Saturday at Laguna Seca. We walked the paddock area more than watched the racing, as we were able to stand within inches of some sports cars that were valued as much as 36-million dollars, give or take a million. You heard me correctly. Some of the cars that were being raced, like say an original 1962 Ferrari 250GTO, were worth well into the millions. Of course, you may be the proud owner of one of the original 1963 Corvette Grand Sport coupes or roadsters. Chevrolet built five total cars, two being roadsters and three coupes. One of these babies might be available for around 10-million, maybe less if the seller is desperate for cash.
As the years roll by genuine racecars and sports cars from the early 1900s up through the '60s and '70s are becoming increasingly rare. Accordingly, their value is always climbing. A vintage-racing enthusiast could have bought a 1957 Austin Healey 100/6 reasonably 10 years ago and campaigned the Healey at vintage racing venues across the U.S. for a small fortune. With rising fuel prices and Austin Healeys commanding ever more money, you'd be spending a medium to large fortune to buy and campaign a 100/6 Healey today.
If you're an avid KIT CAR reader or www.kitcarmag.com visitor, we're not explaining something to you that you don't already know. As time marches on, sports cars and racecars are becoming ever more valuable and scarcer, while kit and replicars are becoming ever more popular. That's why kit car companies, or perhaps more accurately in these examples, continuation car companies like Superformance and Shelby Distribution USA, exhibit their automobiles in the immense vendor area at Laguna Seca during the Monterey Historics.
While attending the Historics, we visited with Lance Stander, CEO of Superformance, Barry Bloch, General Manager of Shelby Distribution USA, and George, Owner of Exotic Auto Restoration in Costa Mesa, California (a Superformance and Shelby American builder, as well as a professional automobile restorer). Roush exhibited several of its outstanding Ford crate engines for the event, any of which we'd love to install in some worthy Ford powered kit car.
We came away from the Monterey Historics 2008 and realized that we'd need to win the California Lottery to afford a genuine vintage sporting or racing machine. Rather than spend our life savings on lottery tickets, my brother and I will likely build/buy a kit car. It's a good thing we just published the 2009 KIT CAR Buyer's Guide. What a great place to do some one stop shopping!