Festorics and West Coast Summer Concours: jewels in the Monterey crown

[Roundel]

Festorics corral full, stand-alone BMW concours draws the old and the new

Monterey: In the midst of economic uncertainties, there was some speculation that the Monterey Historics weekend might be rather subdued this year.[

But the moneyed classes will always survive and prosper; the cars that grace the lawns of Pebble Beach—those million-dollar babies from Ferrari, Bugatti, Delahaye, and Deusenberg—were on hand in abundance. Nor do you have to hang with the swells at Pebble Beach, with its three-figure ticket; those cars get extra points for participating in a pre-concours drive, with the cars staged on Ocean Street in Carmel for all us cheapskates to admire on Thursday.

Jim True's 1934 BMW 309 was the oldest car in the concours. (Frank Reed photos)

The selection of Porsche as the featured marque always guarantees a large crowd, and this year’s vintage races saw a record number of cars on the fabled Laguna Seca track.

And the Golden Gate Chapter’s Festorics corral was full to the brim above Turn Five, a surprise to those who insisted that the economic malaise would keep the fans at home. Instead, the usual thunder could be heard in the Monterey and Salinas canyons—fabulous Ferraris and oh-so-many Porsches, along with an abundance of Bimmers, including the monstrous roar of at least one X5 M and an X6 M, brand new and on the ground at the Central Cal Chapter’s West Coast Summer Concours.

Gilbert Dayao's outrageous supercharged E36 M3 won the M Car Modified class.

That show featured a marvelous array of BMWs of every age and description, from Jim True’s 1934 BMW 309 to Gilbert Dayao’s over-the-top supercharged E36 M3. Dinan Engineering sent the new Dinan S3 M3 down the road from Morgan Hill to thrill the crowd with a few outrageous rap songs; the car was still wearing its track exhaust from dyno testing—about 527 horsepower, if you’re curious—and it made a glorious noise.

The concours judges included Bimmer Magazine’s Jackie Jouret, as well as Larry Koch from BMW North America, on hand to present the first annual BMW NA Trophy for—well, for the car they most wish you’d left the keys in, so they could steal it. That trophy went to Chris Macha’s 1973 3.0CS.

BMW CCA's Frank Patek congratulates seventeen-year-old Andrew Wilkey on his class win.

But one of the most popular winners was Andrew Wilkey, whose immaculate 1984 318i took top honors in the "Open Class: Clean" category. Just seventeen, Wilkey had previously entered the San Diego Chapter concours; Monterey was just his second event.

We hope he’ll still be displaying BMWs for a long, long time. But even if he keeps the 318i for those occasions, he’ll have a long way to go to catch Jim True: he’s owned his 309 for 47 years—since seven years before the birth of the BMW Car Club of America.—Satch Carlson