Special Feature - Classic Meets The Future

Special Feature

Classic Meets The Future - The Epitome Of Elegance In Pebble Beach

Story and Photography | Lou Ann Hammond

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance has been the most prestigious classic car show in the world for over fifty years. The Concours is set on the 18th green at the Lodge at Pebble Beach in Monterey, California overlooking Stillwater Cove. The week leading up to the Concours is the week that car people live for, attending the mecca for car lovers from around the world; Monterey Car Week.

It is physically impossible to go to every event during the week, but we worked our way through the many sculptural pieces of moving art ebbing and flowing with such greats as George Lucas, Jay Leno, Jewel, Jerry Seinfeld, and a host of race car drivers including Marino Franchitt.

Mercedes-Benz eQ silver Arrow

Have you ever watched a tear as it rolls down your face or a raindrop as it slides down a window pane? The designers of the Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow concept have, and they designed the round cockpit glazing, modeled on a drop of water for its outline and cross-section. Digital and analog, leather and wood, the automotive sculpture is a concept electric car that gives homage to the W 125 twelvecylinder, a record-breaking car built by Mercedes- Benz in 1937 as a Grand Prix racing car.

Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Offcer at Daimler AG, drove the EQ Silver Arrow into the limelight, full of light and movement, sans any noise except the clapping hands of adoring fans. The EQC SUV will come to a dealership near you in 2019.

BMw

Jozef Kaban, a former designer for Bugatt, is the new Chief designer for BMW. Kaban introduced the new Z4 line-up with the historical Z cars as a backdrop over the 18th green with a yacht lounging in Stillwater Cove. CEO Bernhard Kunht introduced the M8 concept, a vehicle that will compete nicely with the Audi A7, Porsche Panamera, and upcoming Mercedes-AMG GT in looks and performance.

Rolls Royce Dawn Delivery

Rolls Royce twinkled in the limelight of Black Badge cars including the Dawn, Ghost, and Wraith. Along with the all-new Phantom, Rolls-Royce brought out the Cullinan, the world’s most expensive SUV. Google executive Ben Sloss and wife Christine took delivery of their Rolls-Royce Dawn Black Badge in the company’s signature colors yellow and dark navy livery colors.

BugAtti divo

What’s 5M€ between friends? A Bugatt Divo. Unfortunately, only forty were made, and they sold out immediately. Why? Because the lights are such a clever design that they are worth that much alone.

The Divo head of exterior designer, Frank Heyl, described the Divo in sections, “the top two-thirds of the car is in the matte color, and is the more sculptural more muscular section, while the bottom third is more angular, more technological.”

The lights are the magic and technological challenge. The non-illuminated mesh starts in the middle and blends with what Heyl calls fins, blending into the illuminated parts.

The fins are cut at certain angles, and the secondary fins are rounded and elongated to create a light show that should be in a Las Vegas show. Bugatts are identifiable to anyone through that one circular Bugatt line. The Bugatt line is smaller and thinner than the Chiron line, giving the Divo a more extended look.

The 1,500 horsepower supercooled supercar is named after Albert Divo, French racing driver and twotime winner of the famous Targa Florio race on the mountainous roads of Sicily with Bugatt in the late 1920s.

You can call to see if the one-of-a-kind Divo watch has already sold for $400,000, but you might be stuck with building a Divo from Legos.

Audi pb 18 e-troN coNcept

Audi named the new concept after the eponymous Concours and the successful LMP1 racing car Audi R18 e-tron, the PB 18 e-tron concept. Audi is known for technology centered on the future of automated driving, but this concept is known in-house as Level Zero or the driver’s car. The electric sports car performance mimics the R18 that took victory at Le Mans. In the Audi PB18 e-tron, the driver is the one steering and launching the vehicle from 0-60 in around two seconds. Get ready for your head to swivel from left to right if you want to see this beautiful vehicle because the four electric motors produce a combined 764 horsepower and 612 poundfeet of torque.

Infiniti prototype 10

The new Prototype 10 is an open-cockpit speedster, and the second time Infiniti has shown us a vintage-inspired racecar concept with an all-electric drivetrain. Infiniti announced that every new model from 2021 on will be electrified.

Jaguar Zero Ev-type

The minute Prince Harry and Meghan Markle swooped off in a pearl blue electric Jaguar car enthusiast started talking about what it would cost to create a Jaguar evtype. Jaguar answered the question with Jaguar Zero. Not as in zero dollars, but a Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV). Jaguar is taking one of the most beloved, architecturally impressive car designs and bringing it to life in a back to the future moment; creating an electric conversion with quicker acceleration than the original Series 1 E-type.

While offcial pricing, technical specifications, and availability have yet to be announced, Jaguar Classic is now taking expressions of interest from potential E-type Zero clients. Deliveries of the first electric E-type vehicles are expected to start from summer 2020.

I can only imagine that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have already put their order in for the Zero, but if you can’t afford the Jaguar E-type EV, you can purchase the same cuttng-edge technology from the Jaguar I-PACE, the impressive zero-emissions performance SUV.

Lamborghini Aventador Svj

Lamborghini can’t help itself; they only make cars that are fast, nimble and beautiful. The evening at the Lamborghini house was just like the supercar, filled with the Secret Lives of the Super Rich Monaco types talking about blockchains.

It was lovely to run into my old friend Nicholas Frankl, threetime winter Olympian and co-founder of My Yacht Group and his twin sister Annabelle. Lamborghini’s head of R&D, Maurizio Reggiani, talked about the pinnacle of Lamborghini V12 super sports cars that will be limited to 900 units. The 770 horsepower will stampede past you in a 0-60 of 2.8 seconds.

Acura NSX

The Singer Jewel was taking requests at the Acura dinner. Most people were requesting her songs, but I shouted out, make something up, and she did, “oh, the lady with the nice white sportcoat and a flowered skirt asked me today what would I play for her, and I said, I would like to be...quite free.”

The New Sports eXperience, called NSX is best set free on the Pacific Coast Highway in a Thermal Orange Pearl premium paint option with an output of 573 horsepower and 476 lb.-ft. of torque. Now that’s worth singing about...quite free.

Singer Porsche

Who better to talk about the Singer Dynamics and Lightweighting Study (DLS) show car than Marino Franchitt. Franchitt is not only a legendary race car driver, but he is also the development driver for Singer. Franchitt is a massive air-cooled Porsche fan, so it was a natural fit to have Franchitt test-drive the $1.8-million performance vehicle.

Underneath the Singer is a 964 Porsche. The 2200 pound 1990 Porsche has been carbon-bodied to create a light power-to-weight ratio. The 500 horsepower with a 9,003 rpm redline holds an impressive power-to-weight ratio. Every single surface of the car has been developed in conjunction with the Williams Formula 1. The ducktail on the Singer is more than a decoration; it gives downforce.

The lines are sweet; the air-cooled 911 engine has all the idiosyncrasies of a Porsche. Franchitt’s job, as he sees it, is not just to make a race car, but “to make the driver feel special. It’s a 964 Porsche, but the driving is more akin to a 997 4-liter.” Feeling special shouldn’t be any harder than starting the Singer DLS and turning the radio to Time by Pink Floyd as you race on.

Aston Martin

The last couple of years Aston Martin have created a pop-up store in the center of Carmel during Monterey Car Week. This year the Director of Design, Miles Nurnberger was on hand to tell me about the Aston Martin Lagonda Vision Concept. Lagonda is a brand that Aston Martin has owned since about 1985 and showed the electrified concept at the Geneva Motor Show first.

The Lagonda is what a luxury autonomous electric limousine will look like in the future. Luxury and privacy are what people with wealth are looking for in futuristic cars. Aston Martin is looking at bringing this car to market with the availability of a Level 4 in 2020. The spaciousness comes from the batteries occupying the floor of the vehicle.

To drive or to be driven in an autonomous electrified car is a focus of Aston Martin’s future, and as long as it still encapsulates the luxury of Aston Martin I’m okay with that.