GM’s Pebble Beach Motorama, and a Big Red Bus

GM's Motorama exhibit at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance included 19 of
the company's historic show cars and one "Parade of Progress" Futurliner
(background), one of the big red buses that carried GM's science and technology
shows to small-town America in the 1950s. In the foreground is the 1954
Firebird I, a turbine-powered airplane-with-wheels "Dream Car." An earlier
version of this car nearly killed GM development engineer Charles McCuen
in a high-speed crash.

Some of them went off to junkyards to rust quietly for decades before being rescued. Some were spirited off into the night by GM employees who didn’t have the heart to send them to the crusher. Some slumbered nearly forgotten under tarps in GM warehouses. It wasn’t until the mid-’80s that General Motors realized it needed to move fast to locate, preserve and restore the surviving Dream Cars from its Motorama era.

The truth is, no one really knows how many Dream Cars GM built in the 1950s -- the record-keeping was lousy back then -– so it’s hard to know the actual losses. But it’s remarkable that so many pristine examples found their way to the lawn at Pebble Beach for GM’s Motorama display, part of its centennial celebration at the recent Concours d’Elegance.

(Click for Motorama: GM's 1950s' Dream Cars photo gallery)

Among the cars were GM design czar Harley Earl’s personal car, the Buick Y-Job, which is still the best concept car the company ever made (though, strictly speaking, not a Motorama car). Others on display included Chuck Jordan’s first car, the bubble-top Buick Centurion (with rear-view camera); Pontiac’s riff on the early Corvette, the Bonneville Special; and the three Firebird cars. With technical innovations such as turbine engines, intelligent highway guidance, air brakes, titanium construction, air-oil suspension, joystick operation and magnetic keys, the Firebirds –- though a bit silly in their aping of rocket-era styling –- were real laboratories for future technology, some still out of our practical reach.

A few years ago, at a high-bank track in France, I had a chance to drive the Cadillac Le Mans Motorama car. It was great to see it again at Pebble Beach, to be reminded of just how enormous the two-seat car is (196 inches). It had Cadillac’s first wraparound windshield. Words fail to convey how cool this car is.

Lording over all was GM’s big red bus, a beautifully restored Futurliner, one of 12 built by the company to move its Parade of Progress exhibits as they barnstormed across America. This bus, restored and owned by the National Automotive and Truck Museum of the United States, is the most correct and accurate of the 10 remaining Futurliners.

For a quick history of Futurliners, click here. Well worth it.

-- Dan Neil

[Photos: General Motors]

1938 Alfa Romeo wins "Best of Show" at Pebble Beach

A 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta, owned by Jon Shirley, the former chief operating officer of Microsoft, won "Best of Show" at this year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

Jay Leno hosted the main event in its 58th year, raising $1.3 million for charity.

-- Joni Gray

Photo: AP

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Pebble Beach 2008: Bugatti reveals Veyron 16.4 Gran Sport and a tribute to Gene Kelly

Given the fact that there are more than 1,000 horses, 16 cylinders, four turbos, all-wheel drive, 12 radiators and a wing that would fly a 777 already onboard, it almost goes without saying: There's not a lot of extra room in the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Certainly not enough for a retractable hardtop or even soft top. So, for the company's latest variation on the Veyron, the open-top Gran Sport, the company reached back into hallowed antiquity.

"Two years ago, we saw a picture with an old Type 35," recounted Wolfgang Schreiber, technical director for Bugatti, at the press presentation Saturday night. "Two gentlemen were in the car and the copilot was holding an umbrella over their heads. We said, 'Why can't we use this idea with the Veyron?' "

An umbrella? Really? Pay $1.7 million and you get an umbrella? Gene Kelly must be singing in the grave.

The new Veyron has a removable polycarbonate targa roof panel that owners hang on a special stand in the garage (I estimate the stand alone costs $50,000). Should drivers get caught in the rain without the roof, the car includes a special rectangular roof panel that opens like an umbrella/parasol/bumbershoot. The roof is then buttoned to the rectangular opening above the cockpit.

Depending on your degree of cynicism, this "tecknical zooolution" could be fun and charming, or downright weird. I'm pretty cynical. In any event, it doesn't rain much in the UAE or Kuwait, so the Veyron Parasol is less a practicality than a bid for romance. I'm OK with that. Also, Bugatti execs argued, the parasol works better than Lamborghini's whalebone-and-canvas top for the Murcielago roadster, which as far as recorded history knows, no one has ever managed to get on the car, or back in the freaking bag.

Other details from the conference: The Gran Sport will have LED daytime-running lights (like Audi's, only, um, more expensive), slightly taller windscreen and diamond-cut alloy "rims." (I love it when German PhDs use the word "rims." It's so street.) Meanwhile, the car has been massively reinforced with carbon fiber elements to make up for the loss of structural rigidity once carried by the fixed roof.

The first Gran Sport will be auctioned at Gooding & Co. tonight for charity. The second Gran Sport ought to go to Rihanna.

— Dan Neil

Photo: Bugatti

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Pebble Beach 2008: Williamson Bugattis sell, one sets record (sort of)

As expected, Dr. Peter and Susan Williamson's collection of Bugattis brought a large crowd to the Gooding & Co. auction at Pebble Beach. The results were decidedly mixed, with some cars selling for well below estimate — the Type 46 Sport Saloon, the "Baby Royale," sold for a mere $400,000 — and other cars prompting lively bidding wars.

The star of the evening didn't disappoint. The matching-number Atalante, the two-tone green 57SC, sold for huge dollars: $7.2 million. David Gooding claimed from the rostrum that this was a record for a Bugatti, and though I defer to Gooding in expertise, it seems to me the 5.5 million pounds paid at Christie's in 1987 for a 1931 Bugatti Royale Berline sports coupe is still the record, especially if you consider inflation-adjusted dollars and pounds.

Here are the results of the sale:

CAR / ESTIMATE / SALE PRICE

1927 Bugatti Type 35B Grand Prix / $1,100,000-$1,600,000 / $1.325M

1914 Peugeot Bebe two-seat roadster (Bugatti designed) / $30,000-$40,000 / $40,000

1929 Bugatti Type 44 Dual-Cowl Phaeton / $200,000-$300,000 / $240,000

1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante Coupe / Estimate on request / $7.2M

1926/41 Bugatti Type 35/Miller Four-Cam V-8 / $800,000-$1,200,000 / $475,000

1932 Bugatti Type 55 "Jean Bugatti Roadster" / $1,400,000-$2,100,000 / $1.6M

1932 Bugatti Type 46 Sport Saloon / $650,000-$850,000 / $400,000

1939 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante Coupe / $900,000-$1,200,000 / $800,000

1927 Bugatti Type 38 Roadster / $80,000-$120,000 / $180,000

1939 Bugatti Type 57C Galibier Sport Saloon / $350,000-$500,000 / $360,000

1931 Bugatti Type 35A/Type 51 Grand Prix / $1,300,000-$1,800,000 / $825,000

1934 Bugatti Type 57 Cabriolet / $500,000-$700,000 / $660,000

1926 Bugatti Type 52 Short Nose "Baby Bugatti" / $40,000-$60,000 / $TBD

— Dan Neil

Photo: The Williamson Collection's Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante fetched $7.2 million on Saturday in Pebble Beach. Credit: Gooding & Co.

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Pebble Beach 2008: French coachwork, by way of New Jersey

The sultry beauty of Grand Era French coachwork — the Bugattis, Delahayes, Delages, Voisins and Figonis of the world — has always had a strange effect on the hearts of men (and the women they seek to impress).

But perhaps nobody has ever been rendered quite as insensible as Terry Cook, a New Jersey hot rodder, custom lead-sled maker, buddy of Chip Foose and now, carrosserier. Cook, whose company Deco Rides is familiar to custom-car lovers as the maker of fiberglass-bodied Lincoln Zephyrs, branched out three years ago to create Delahaye USA, a company devoted to alloy-bodied re-creations of some of the most beautiful cars in history.

I found Cook standing with his fabricating partner, Steve Pierce, at their stand at the Retromobile tent at Pebble Beach on Thursday. Cook explained that he was well along in creating two cars — one a high-tech riff on the Delahaye 165 owned by collector Peter Mullin, the other a "tribute" to the Bugatti Type 57C "Shah of Persia" car — using digitized body and chassis designs, computer-fabricated plywood bucks and modern running gear, including BMW V-12 engines. Both these cars are extravagant in the extreme, massive, pontoon-fendered confections, the highest examples of mobile lyricism. I asked Cook the reasonable question: What the hell is he thinking?

"The voices in my head told me to do it," said the affable car builder, in a "Sopranos"-esque Jersey accent. "They just didn't tell me how to pay for it."

And yet something about Cook's effort makes a lot of sense. Design classics — whether phones or boats or watches — are pretty common these days, marrying the perfection of early 20th century and Deco design with the guts of modern machinery and electronics. Many people who might want to drive a classic car would not be able to tolerate its mechanical limitations (no power steering or brakes, for instance), even if they could afford it.

Meanwhile, Cook's neo-classics will make some significant improvements. Among them, power retractable windshields for the front seat and the rumble seat; an "occasional step" is hidden in the curb side of the car to allow passengers to gracefully ingress the rumble seat. The rumble seat will also have its own set of driving instruments, such as speedometer and tachometer. There will be two cut-glass decanters (by Pepe Herman) and four glasses in the rear compartment. Also included are fitted aluminum luggage as well as matching shoes, purse and gloves for the lady in question.

But can a nice guy from New Jersey match the refinement and quality of the great French coachbuilders?

"We can exceed it," Cook said. "Those cars were knocked together in just a few short weeks. We're spending years." The modern fabricating techniques available — TIG welding, CNC-machined body forms, high-strength alloys — will give Cook's cars a dimensional accuracy the French builders never dreamed of. Also, he said, "They never spent the kind of money we're spending on these cars."

Again, why? "It's a passion," he says. "Some guys spend it in Las Vegas, some guys blow it up their nose. I love French coachbuilding."

— Dan Neil

Photo: Terry Cook, principal of Delahaye USA, and his fabricating partner, Steve Pierce, with one of the company's prototypes, a Corvette-powered car with a pastiche of various European coachbuilder elements (note the Bugatti grille and the Hispano-Suiza hood ornament). Credit: Dan Neil / Los Angeles Times

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Pebble Beach 2008: Talbot-Lago sells for $4.4 million

Its time on the block came and went. The early lively bidding in Bonhams & Butterfields tent dwindled quickly to just two bidders — one present, one on the phone. Wham! Sold, for $4.4 million. Applause. The crowd turned its attention to a dark green 1962 Citroen 2CV. The auction tenders then pushed the Talbot-Lago 150 CSS with Pourtout body work, a real Ecurie Nice race car shrouded in the body of an elegant sports car, out of the tent and — unceremoniously, I think — into the sun.

A few minutes later, Betty Locke (pictured with the car) came out to say goodbye — though she might deny being particularly sentimental. Locke's late husband, Lindley, was a keen collector of Talbot-Lagos, and when he died in 2001, he left her with five of them. One, with astounding Figoni & Falaschi coachwork, she donated to the Nethercutt Collection and Museum in Sylmar. "That was my favorite," the diminutive lady in the straw hat said. "That was our first one."

The couple, who met as undergrads at UCLA, loved Talbots. "They were fun to drive, fast cars," Locke said. And she loves driving. Locke still logs thousands of miles a year in her 1977 VW Beetle. She still has her first car, a 1938 Cadillac Opera Coupe.

This car sat more or less undisturbed in the Lockes' garage since 1962, which makes it one of those extraordinary "barn finds" with original patina that are so prized in the collecting world. One reason the Talbot is such a find is that it can be a double winner at Pebble Beach — first in the unrestored original class and then, with a few thousand hours of meticulous restoration, as a contender for the Concours "Best in Show" title.

Of the remaining Talbots, Locke said, she would like to get one or two back on the road, to sell or perhaps show them. What would her husband say about the auction today? "I don't know that he would have wanted to let it go," Locke said.

She then posed beside the car for her friend. "I think I might use the picture as my Christmas card."

— Dan Neil

Photo credit: Dan Neil / Los Angeles Times

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Pebble Beach 2008: Behind the wheel of the very first Porsche

I don't get to make history very often. I think the last time was when I drove all across the country with my left blinker on.

However, during the Pebble Beach weekend, lightning strikes, stars align and good things happen. Example: I was able to talk my way behind the wheel of the very first Porsche, the Gmund Porsche 001, built by Ferry Porsche and his team in Gmund, Austria, in 1948. Not a replica, not 002.5, but the first real postwar Porsche, designed by Ferry Porsche, styled by Erwin Komenda and fettled by Friedrich Weber.

With ever-loving gratitude to Klaus Bischof, manager of the Porsche Museum (which is now being readied for its grand opening in December in Stuttgart, Germany), I was able to spend a couple of hours flogging the little silver car on 17-Mile Drive before its appearance at Sunday's Concours d'Elegance. After which it will be installed in the centerpiece position at the new museum.

I will be writing a longer meditation on the car shortly, but here are a couple of quick observations:

The first car is not rear-engined, the configuration made famous by Porsche, but mid-engined. After this prototype was built, it was determined that the costs did not justify the dynamic advantages of a mid-engine layout. The next prototypes were for the more familiar, rear-engine 356/2 cars. The 001 car thus feels less like the precursor of 911 than an ancient Boxster.

The workmanship is astonishing. Porsche's metal hammerer, Weber, was a master craftsman. This is all the more surprising because he was also a chronic alcoholic, going on benders after everybody was finished.

The 001 is light — 1,300 pounds — and effortless to drive. In 1948, this car must have looked and felt like a visitor from another galaxy. It is also the beginning of a long chain of causality that today finds Porsches still lighter and more fuel-efficient than competitors.

It's a myth buster: All my professional life I've been told the reason the ignition switch in Porsches is on the left is that it was better for Le Mans-style racing starts. Not true. "It's just to avoid the wire coming up through the center of the console," Bischof says. "Saves maybe 200 grams."

Now that's cool.

— Dan Neil

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Pebble Beach 2008: A car that revolutionized drowning

I never get tired of that joke....

Oh sure, you may palaver over your Bugattis, may salivate over your Zagato-bodied Ferraris and Astons, may plotz over your Shelby race cars. But how about one of these, huh? You don't see these every day — unless you do a lot of scuba diving.

Behold the dubious wisdom of the 1963 Amphicar 770, Lot  No. 6 at the Gooding & Co. auction on Saturday.

The Amphicar — answer to the question "What happens when you combine a lousy car and a lousy boat?" — was built briefly (1961-68) in Germany, which had a long history of "swimmenwagens."

Called the "definitive aquatic automobile" — though makers of the Aquada may disagree — the Amphicar is powered by a 43-horsepower Triumph four-cylinder engine and has twin props and four-wheel drum brakes. It's expected to fetch between $60,000 and $75,000.

I asked David Gooding if we could take it for a test float and he looked alarmed. "I think the door seals are a little worn," he says. There are hundreds of extraordinary cars for sale at Pebble Beach this weekend, but this is likely the only one with its own oar.

— Dan Neil

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Pebble Beach 2008: Too much of a good thing?

Film has its Cannes, art has its Venice Biennale. For the car-obsessed world, the calendar pivots around "Pebble," the cluster of events on the Monterey Peninsula in August anchored by the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races. If you haven't made plans to attend yet, my advice is, don't.

The Winner of the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance Best in Show: The Duesenberg "Mormon Meteor"

Over the years the events on the peninsula have grown more crowded and more expensive, the traffic more grinding and unpleasant. The whole affair has become painfully oversubscribed, succumbing to its own hype as the ultimate celebration of the automobile -- a notion rendered entirely too ironic by sitting in traffic on Highway 68. There has been in recent years some effort to reel back this grand faloon -- tickets sales to Sunday's Concours have been limited, for example -- but every year there seems to be more auctions, more events and more people trying to squeeze onto this tiny spit of land.

Couldn't convince you, eh? You must have the car jones bad. Welcome to the club.