Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance INSIDER September 2020

PEBBLE BEACH CONCOURS d’ELEGANCE®

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Celebrating the Life & Legacy of the Automobile | September 2020

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INSIDER Celebrating the Life & Legacy of the Automobile | September 2020 This early Porsche 917 (chassis 002) raced in 1969.

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Gordon Murray with his new T.50

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22 MY PERSPECTIVE

CHAIRMAN'S LETTER On the Road Again

THE PORSCHE 917 Titan of the Track | By Kate Constantin

12 RACING PORSCHES

With Patrick Dempsey, Hurley Haywood

and Spike Ferestens | A 2019 Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum presented by AIG and BridgePoint

Gordon Murray CBE, Designer | On Cars, the McLaren F1, and The New T.50

26 OUR BEST OF SHOW WINNERS

The 1970s

32 TRADITIONS

Our Charity Drawing

34 CHARITY DRAWING ANNOUNCEMENT

14 PORSCHE PARADISE

A Tour through the Porsche Museum with Director Achim Stejskal | By Martin Button

On the Cover The 1972 Porsche 917 /10 Can-Am shown by Bruce Canepa wins its class at the Pebble Beach Concours in 2009.

Pebble Beach®, Pebble Beach Resorts®, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance®, Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance®, Pebble Beach® Automotive Week, Pebble Beach Golf Links®, The Lodge at Pebble Beach™, The Inn at Spanish Bay™, Spanish Bay®, 17-Mile Drive®, The Lone Cypress™, Stillwater Cove™, and their respective underlying logo designs and distinct images, are trademarks, service marks and trade dress of Pebble Beach Company.

Copyright © 2020 Pebble Beach Company. All rights reserved.

PUBLISHER Pebble Beach Company EDITOR IN CHIEF Sandra Button EDITORS Quinn Button & Kandace Hawkinson DESIGN Nicole Doré at Madden Media CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS & PHOTO ARCHIVES Contributing Photographers & Photo Archives: Pebble Beach Company Lagorio Archives with particular thanks for the work of photographer Julian P. Graham and William C. Brooks; Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Archives; John Ballie, Steve Burton, Martin and Sandra Button; Chopard, Collection de l'Automobile Club de France, Jeffrey S. Field, Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Michael Furman, Tia Gemmell, Winston Goodfellow, Gooding & Company, Goodwood House Archive, Julian P. Graham, Stephen Griswold, Ken Gross, The Henry Ford museum, Ron Kimball Studios, Martin Klimek, L.A.T. Photographic Digital Archive, Pawel Litwinski, Louwman Museum, James Mann, McPherson College, Mercedes-Benz Classic Center Archive, Miller-Offenhauser Historical Society, Porsche Museum, Harold Peters, RM Auctions, Allan Rosenberg, Douglas Sandberg, Dany and Calilo Sielecki Collection, Bunny Singer, Sean S. Smith Photography, Jeffrey Stark, Derek Waller Archive, Nic Waller, and Chia Wen Photography

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN For decades now, each year of my life has been divided into three seasons. There is the long period of planning for each Concours, which begins in late fall when we send out entry applications and gradually ramps up through the car selection process to the following August. Then comes the excitement of Concours week itself, when all that we’ve planned unfolds. And this is followed by a period of rest, reflection and rejuvenation.

I call the last of these seasons “The Big Exhale.”

The Big Exhale is a time just after the Concours when I look back on the event with an eye to the future, expressing gratitude for all that went right and examining anything that went either overtly wrong or not as well as it might have, in the hope that we can build toward an even better Concours the following year.

It is also a time when I reconnect in more depth with everyone in my life — with family and friends and other car people, including many who were at the Concours.

And — finally! — The Big Exhale is a time when I can relax and truly enjoy cars.

“Relaxing” is a very active state for me. I am not the sort of girl who enjoys lounging in a spa or lying on the beach in the sun. Even at rest, I am a “Go” girl.

So during The Big Exhale, I go!

I go on tours and rallies, I go to other concours and car shows, and I go to museums and exhibitions. I also go to visit collections, whether great or small, formal or casual. Basically, I see cars, and I drive cars, and I drive cars to see other cars. (I think this probably sounds familiar to many of you!)

Now I have something to confess: Getting through Concours week this year without an event was even more difficult than I expected. So, at the urging of a few very good car friends, I began The Big Exhale a few days prior to Concours Sunday. I fled Pebble Beach, travelling down the Pacific Coast with car friends, hoping to distract myself at least a bit.

That worked only to a very limited extent, of course. But to a greater extent, it underscored the fact that I love cars and car people — and they can be a balm to the soul even in the worst of times.

I was thankful for the sight and sound and smell of the cars, for the soothing rhythm that comes from being on the road. I was glad for the car people traveling with me, despite the need for social distancing. And I was grateful for each and every kind email received from others amidst that very hard week.

Our trip included great visits with Jack and Helen Nethercutt as well as Bill and Cheryl Swanson, and the finale was a tour of Jay Leno's garage with Jay as our knowledgeable host.

I returned to Pebble Beach late on Concours Sunday to gather with my small (yet mighty!) team on the lawn of The Lodge at Pebble Beach and toast to all that has not yet happened, but is to come in 2021.

It felt more than a bit odd to sit there, without an awards ramp or a field of cars before us, yet it was a gathering filled with good humor and much hope. And now I am on the road again, piecing together a full calendar of car events while abiding by quarantines and limits on gatherings, as well as the need to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Several “Cars and Coffee” gatherings have transformed into drive-by events, hearkening back perhaps to days and nights spent cruising down main streets of old. With additional restrictions, select museums have reopened and a few daring Concours are moving forward. Racing, too, has resumed, minus the spectators; the Indy 500 took place at the end of August and the 24 Hours of Le Mans is to be held this month.

At the forthcoming Pebble Beach Concours in 2021, we’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic 1970 Le Mans win by the Porsche 917, so in this issue of the digital Insider, we focus on that marque and model. We take you back to the car’s creation and its historic racing successes. We also invite you to tour the Porsche Museum, as Martin and I did a few years back, with Achim Stejskal as our guide.

This Insider also details our 1970 Best of Show winners and offers some exciting news regarding our Concours charities.

I hope you enjoy the read . . . but let's not forget THE ROAD! It's time to get out and drive our old cars.

Sincerely yours, Sandra Button Chairman #DriveOn2021

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Titan

of the

Track

BY KATE CONSTANTIN

When it debuted in 1969, the Porsche 917 was the new kid on the grid and came with a predictable amount of adolescent angst that undermined its initial success.

However, with a little maturity and significant modification, the revolutionary sports car emerged a year later with the spirit of a thoroughbred and the stamina to stay the course at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It dominated the sports car field around the world, taking the checkered flag at Le Mans in 1970 and again in 1971. History was made. . . .

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buckle up.

Let’s slip this story into reverse for a moment and land in the late 1960s. Race cars were being built with almost no safety standards, and the drivers were a colorful and brave band who dined together and often sadly died together. During this bizarre confluence of innovation and addiction to risk, race cars were built to be relentless and unforgiving.

At the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1968, the Porsche factory race team was experiencing no small amount of frustration as victory eluded them once again. Ford’s 4.9-liter GT40 finished a full five laps ahead of Porsche’s diminutive 2.2-liter 907LH. Throughout the 1950s, Porsche had experienced notable success around the world with its tight and light 550, 718, RS and RSK sports cars, occasionally surpassing its heavyweight peers on more technical courses, such as the Targa Florio. By 1968, the 2.2-liter Porsche 907 and its sibling the 3.0-liter 908 were the core of the Porsche race campaign, but they were always a couple of liters and a few laps behind the big boys.

Meanwhile, speed and power were increasing exponentially in the prototype category, and the governing body, the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI), grew concerned.

In an effort to reign in the unlimited capacity Group 6 Prototypes, engine displacement was restricted to 3.0 liters, while the Group 4 Sports Cars were limited to 5.0 liters. When an adjustment to the homologation ruling was announced for the following 1969 season that reduced the Group 4 production requirement from 50 to just 25 cars, Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and chief of R&D at Porsche, recognized an opportunity to jump into the ring and claim the ultimate prize at Le Mans.

rated at 580 horsepower. Although air-cooled engines were generally considered less powerful, the weight advantage of a fan over a much heavier radiator plus coolant was key. Weight was further reduced by using magnesium and titanium, and to house the behemoth flat-12 powerplant, Porsche employed an aluminum tubular frame that weighed a paltry 93 lbs. The pilot was almost fully reclined between the front wheels, with his toes in the nose, and the rear section featured a sweeping long tail or “Langheck,” a trait inherited from the 908.

In March 1969, the 917 was revealed at the Geneva Motor Show with a sticker price of DM140,000 — the equivalent of $35,000 at the time. Each 917 engine alone took 160 hours to construct, but incredibly the required 25 cars were lined up outside the Porsche factory on April 21, ready for inspection by the CSI. In less than a month, the 917 was scheduled for its debut at the 1000 km Spa-Francorchamps race, but following track tests the car was found to be so unstable and unwieldy that

Porsche executive Helmuth Bott summoned chief engineer Hans Mezger, and in a secret atelier the R&D team designed and built the all-new 917 race car in just 10 months, with the specific intent of entering it into the 1969 Le Mans. It is believed that their mission was so secret it was dubbed “the revised 912,” claiming it was a rework of the small entry-level sports car.

In reality the 917 was the antithesis of the 912, as Porsche pared back the weight, piled on the power, and developed a compact air-cooled flat 12-cylinder 4.5-liter engine, initially

Twenty-five Porsche 917s line up for homologation inspection outside the Porsche factory in Zuffenhausen on April 21, 1969.

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Jo Siffert runs to his Porsche 908 in the traditional Le Mans start in September 28, 1968.

no one wanted to drive it. “Handling was terrible,” says Brian Redman, the renowned Porsche factory driver at the time, “it wandered all over the road — even on the straights!” The general consensus was that the car produced too much power for the lightweight frame, and the long tail that worked so well on the smaller-displacement 908 was creating extreme lift and instability, not unlike a gorilla on a surf-kite. “The chassis was built from aluminum tubing,” reflects Redman, “while the Lolas, McLarens and Fords were building steel monocoques. I knew of six 917s that broke clean in half — right across the cockpit. The night before a race I would think, ‘This could be curtains!’”

Although Jo Siffert, Redman’s teammate, achieved the fastest lap in practice at Spa in the 917, he alighted from the car and without fanfare stated, “We’re not driving that! We’re driving the 908.” Of the two 917s attending the 1000 km Spa race, only one ran — piloted by Gerhard Mitter and Udo Schütz — and it retired with a blown engine after a single lap.

At the Nürburgring on June 1, all five Porsche teams chose the 908 over the 917 and took the first five positions on the podium. Veteran drivers David Piper and Frank Gardner agreed to drive the 917 and managed to finish the 44-lap race in a distant 8th place.

Only two weeks later, all eyes turned to France. The 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans took place on June 14, and although the Porsche team brainstormed several modifications, there was minimal improvement in drivability. Three 917 Porsches entered the Le Mans race, two by the factory and one by a privateer, John Woolfe.

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Ferdinand Piëch (left) and Porsche’s Lead Engineer, Professor Helmuth Bott (right) show the 917s to FIA/ CSI representatives Dean Delamont and Herbert Schmidt.

“It was a nightmare to drive — constantly off the ground!” recalls Porsche factory driver Richard Attwood, who was teamed with “Quick Vic” Elford. “I hated that car from the minute I got into it.” Miraculously, and with no small credit to their driving skill, the two veterans managed to take the lead and were in an excellent position to win the race, when three hours before the end they were forced to retire with clutch issues. Disappointed? “Not one bit!” says Attwood. “I was so happy to get out of that car I didn’t give a monkey’s tail about the race. It was ready to take off at any moment and the level of concentration and effort it took just to keep it on the track was horrendous. You had to stay on top of it every second.”

The other Porsche factory car also retired with similar problems. The privateer, John Woolfe, spun his 917 at La Maison Blanche on his first lap, flipped the car and tragically died, having failed to attach his safety harness correctly after the soon-to-be-outlawed Le Mans start.

Other than a last-minute victory in October at the 1,000 km race at Zeltweg, Austria, the 1969 campaign was hardly the auspicious start that Porsche had envisioned for its innovative 917. At the end of its debut season, the cars and the team returned to Stuttgart for some major re-engineering and deep soul searching. Despite the disastrous opening, three competing Porsche-affiliated race stables — JWA/Gulf (JW Automotive Engineering), Martini, and Porsche Salzburg — campaigned the 917 the following year.

The chief engineer at JWA/Gulf, John Horsman — formerly of the GT40 squad at Ford — studied the aerodynamics of the 917. After a few test laps Horsman noticed that while

Above: Brian Redman and Jo Siffert at Le Mans in 1969. They chose a long-tail 908 Spyder instead of the 917 for that race.

Left: Porsche 917s are assembled for homologation in the Porsche race department at Werk I.

The Vic Elford/Richard Attwood 917 enters the Dunlop curve at Le Mans in 1969. Careful driving, until the gearbox failed in the 22nd hour, almost secured victory in the 917’s first entry at Le Mans.

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the 24 hours of le mans in 1970

The start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970. Elford in the Porsche 917L (car 25) and Siffert in the 917K (car 20) lead the pack, including two other Gulf-sponsored 917s and a trio of Ferrari 512s.

The Elford/Attwood 917 in the pits at Le Mans in 1969.

the nose of the 917 was splattered with dead bugs, the rear section was clean, suggesting a lack of air flow over the tail, thus no downforce. Horsman directed his mechanics to reshape the tail by adding an incline to the existing tail. The following morning the car went out again and lap times fell by a whopping five seconds. With a new short-tail modification known as the Kurzheck or K, the 917 was a totally different car. Downforce was increased and stability established, which specifically improved fast cornering.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970 was to be the ultimate showdown — and hopefully Porsche’s vindication. Starting alongside eleven 5.0-liter V-12 512 S Ferraris, Porsche Salzburg, Martini and JWA/Gulf brought out their modified 917 cars, each with world-famous drivers. When Salzburg approached Richard Attwood to pilot their entry, he was resolute on the conditions he would accept. “I wanted a shorttail car and Hans Herrmann as my co-driver,” he recalls. “We didn’t speak each other’s languages at all, but he was just the best.” Despite the veteran dream team’s abilities, Attwood didn’t believe they stood a chance: “We had a smaller engine than the Ferraris and a short tail that was more stable but 30 mph slower on the straight. But as luck would have it, everyone went off like bloody idiots from the start as though it was a Grand Prix, not a 24-hour race.”

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According to Brian Redman, in the middle of the night the JWA 917K driven by him and his teammate Jo Siffert was leading the race by four laps and 32 miles. In torrential rain with zero visibility, Jacky Ickx in his Ferrari 512S came up behind Siffert and the two entered into a dogfight as though the flag was about to drop, even though there were still 12 hours to go. Suddenly and without warning, Ickx flew off the track leaving Siffert in the lead. Then, no more than an hour later, at around 2 am, Siffert came up behind three cars that were accelerating out of the Ford chicane and all hell broke loose. “Jo dived to the right between the cars and the wall, and right there, right in front of the pits, he missed a gear and blew the engine — we all heard it,” says Redman, who was watching from the JWA/Gulf pit. “We were rendered speechless!”

Meanwhile, Salzburg’s Attwood and Herrmann duo, who had started 15th on the grid, ploughed on through the downpour, as cars spun off left and right. “Suddenly we realized we were in the lead,” says Attwood. “It was crazy, I hadn’t passed anyone! I couldn’t figure out where they’d all gone. Everyone was making silly mistakes.” Following hours of deluge, splashing through chicanes and tearing up the Mulsanne Straight like the splash zone at a theme park, often with no other visual marker than the taillights of a car ahead, the red

was to be the ultimate showdown...

A Porsche 917 (chassis 023) driven by Hans Herrmann takes the checkered flag at Le Mans in 1970.

and white Salzburg Porsche 917K flew across the finish line in first place, with 343 laps or 2,863 miles under its belt.

The Martini 917LH, known as the “Hippie” for its crazy psychedelic blue and green paint work, finished five laps behind in second place. The Martini 908/2LH came in third, producing a one, two, three finish for Porsche at Le Mans — and the ultimate Holy Grail of racing was realized. The North American Racing Team’s Ferraris 512S trailed the trio, 22 laps behind.

As if the real 24 Hours of Le Mans wasn’t thrilling enough, screen star Steve McQueen decided to make a movie about the legendary race, which is largely comprised of live footage of the 1970 event. Starring McQueen himself and an all-star crew of stunt drivers including Derek Bell, Brian Redman, Richard Attwood and David Piper, the film Le Mans featured a 917 as the race winner, adding silver screen kudos to its reallife success. During the movie McQueen coined the phrase “Racing is life. Anything before and after is just waiting.”

Attwood remembers the film with a chuckle, “Waiting is right; all we did was wait. It was so boring — not glamorous at all. The sun wasn’t right, the wind was wrong, the weather was bad, there was always something to stall the filming. But honestly, I made more money in two days filming than from a full week of racing. It was very well paid chaos!” Le Mans

enjoys a cult following to this day, with two equally revered stars — the 917 and Steve McQueen. “Steve was a great guy,” says Attwood. “He wanted to be a race car driver and we all wanted to be movie stars. It was a mutual appreciation society!”

Derek Bell with Steve McQueen during filming of Le Mans in 1970

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and then 5.0 liters, ultimately producing 630 horsepower. A battalion of different Porsches was rolled out for the start of the 1971 Le Mans race, including iterations of the 907, 908, 911 and 914, as well as the 917. Despite increased competition from the newly configured Ferrari 512 M, expectation in the Porsche stable was high, particularly for the JWA/Gulf cars in their iconic blue and orange Gulf livery.

Derek Bell recalls the 1971 Le Mans preparation vividly.

“The first time I drove the 917 at Le Mans, other than in the Steve McQueen film, was at the test weekend. I had driven for Ferrari the year before, and here I was driving a Porsche. Doesn’t get much better than that! The Ferrari could do 210 to 215 mph on the Mulsanne Straight, but the 917 — that was something else.

You just weren’t aware of how fast you could go.

The Martini-sponsored 917 (chassis 053) on the way to victory at Le Mans in 1971.

Derek Bell drove the 917 for the first time in the making of Le Mans: “The 917 was a really lethal car in the beginning, but by the time I drove it, it had been tamed and was truly fantastic. The Ferrari 512, in comparison, drove like a truck — you’d turn into a corner and there was a split-second delay before it gripped. The 917 was instantaneous, totally responsive. But I feel for those poor buggers who drove it in the beginning.”

While Steve McQueen was making a movie, Porsche was making history. With the 908/03 for tight technical circuits, the 917K for medium fast tracks, and the 917LH built specifically for Le Mans, JWA- and Salzburg-entered Porsches won every major race in 1970 (bar the 12 Hours of Sebring) and Porsche was awarded the World Sportscar Championship.

By the opening of the 1971 racing season the 917 was producing 580 horsepower at 8,300 rpm. Vertical slats or “shark fins,” which were present on the long tails for 1970, were added to the top of the short tail for some races during the 1971 season and stability was vastly improved. A new ultra-lightweight but highly flammable magnesium frame was developed, and the 4.5-liter motor was enlarged to 4.9

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“I was testing the 917 with Norbert Singer, the Chief Engineer at Porsche, the best engineer I ever worked with. I finished a few laps and Norbert asked me, ‘How many revs were you pulling?’ and I said, ‘About 8,100.’ He looked at me and grinned, ‘That’s good — she blows up at 8,200!’ Anyway, Norbert starts fiddling with his slide-rule to compute my top speed and he starts to laugh. I asked him what was so funny, and he says, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you, it’s better you don’t know.’ I told him, ‘If Ollie (Jackie Oliver), Pedro (Rodriguez) and I have to drive this thing for 24 hours, we should know what it can do.’ He grinned and said, ‘You topped 246 mph on the straight!’” In 1971, the 917 garnered four track records: fastest qualifying lap, fastest race lap, longest distance covered and highest top speed at 244 mph — two miles slower than Derek Bell’s test lap. “I knew I could drive,” says Bell, “but I didn’t know I could fly!”

Six hours into the race, the JWA/Gulf Porsches were in first, second and third place, with a particular favorite being the Porsche 917/20 “Pink Pig,” a variation painted pink with a butcher’s meat-cut diagram drawn over the body. Having attained third place during the night, Reinhold Joest, pilot of the Pink Pig, experienced a locking brake and crashed out of the race at the 90-degree Arnage corner. Garnering an early lead around dawn in the 13th hour, the Martini 917K driven by Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko claimed victory, having completed 397 laps or 3,315 miles — a record that stood for 39 years. The JWA 917K, driven by Richard Attwood and Herbert Müller, took second with 395 laps — a full 29 laps ahead of the third-placed 512 M Ferrari. Porsche went on to win the World Sportscar Championship for a second year running and its supremacy was established.

With two Le Mans wins and a slew of other European and world victories, the 917 was forced to contest alternative series when the CSI once again changed its classifications and

Jo Siffert and Derek Bell drive a long-tail 917 for the JWA/Gulf team at Le Mans in 1971.

Left: Mark Donohue in the Penske-entered Can Am Porsche 917/30 in 1973. Donohue won six of the eight races in the 1973 Can Am season.

Below: Hurley Haywood in the Brumos Porsche 917/10 discusses tactics with his crew chief Eckart Schneider.

abandoned the 5.0-liter Sports Car category. Not surprisingly, Porsche turned its focus to North America. The 917 underwent some fundamental changes with the development of a turbocharged engine and an open-cockpit body style. The new 917/10 went on to win the Can Am series in 1972, usurping McLaren after five years of domination. The following year the 917/30, with a 5.4-liter 12-cylinder engine summoning over 1,200 horsepower, was deemed the most powerful sports car ever built and ruled supreme in almost every category of the Can Am series. Hurley Haywood, a celebrated American driver, raced a 917/10 in 1973 — a car he still owns and respects. “The power of the 917 was the great differentiator!” he beams. “You pushed up the boost knob and off you went — literally mowing down the naturally aspirated Ford and Chevrolet products. It was intimidating!” By 1974, after having created nine variants, Porsche switched gears and sidelined the 917 while developing the 936, which would debut in 1976.

To all intents and purposes, the heyday of the 917 was over, only to be seen again at historic race meetings and in the hallowed halls of collectors, such as the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, the Miles Collier Revs Institute, and in other private collections.

A victim of its own success, never usurped by a competitor, only thwarted by the same regulators that gave it its birth, the Porsche 917 was the direct product of an unprecedented era — a track Titan never to be rivaled and always to be respected and revered.

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Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum PRESENTED BY AIG AND BRIDGEPOINT

RACING PORSCHES W I T H PAT R I C K D E M P S E Y, H U R L E Y H AY W O O D & S P I K E F E R E S T E N

Here, race drivers Hurley Haywood and Patrick Dempsey talk with Spike Feresten about racing Porsches at Le Mans, Daytona and elsewhere. They also discuss their first drives, their favorite classic and current Porsche models including variants of the 911 and 917, pre-race routines, and making decisions that keep life “comfortably uncomfortable.”

Their conversation took place during one of the 2019 Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum sessions, which AIG and BridgePoint have so generously sponsored in recent years.

Watch the complete Forum on our YouTube channel.

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PORSCHE

B Y M A R T I N E . B U T TO N

PARADISE

A Tour through the Porsche Museum with Director Achim Stejskal

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The galleries at the Porsche Museum lead visitors on a journey of discovery.

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W

“THIS MUSEUM MUST BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED”

We had heard a great deal about the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, prior to our visit, but this museum must be seen to be believed. As we got out of our cab on a sunny May afternoon, Sandra and I paused. It looked for all the world as though a spaceship was hovering overhead—right there in Stuttgart!

This daring feat of futuristic structural design by Viennese architect Delugan Meissl is cantilevered on three concrete struts and encompasses over 60,000 square feet and more than 80 cars. Opened in 2009, the museum is a minimalist fusion of

The unique Porsche 356 "Number 1" Roadster has an aluminum body designed

by Erwin Komenda.

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— M ARTIN E . BUT TON

metal, glass and white marble creating a space that embodies Porsche’s fundamental philosophy highlighting power, speed, light and intensity.

Our host, Achim Stejskal, director of the museum, greeted us at the door and led us without ado through the spacious marble lobby into the museum workshop. This state-of-theart werkstatt, which is not accessible to the public but can be viewed through a large glass wall, is one of the features that renders the Porsche Museum unique. In keeping with Porsche lore, Porsche cars do not grow old. Instead they become classics that are, in every respect, still suited to the road. So exhibits are constantly rotated through the workshop to be tuned and detailed in preparation for the numerous historical races and driving events the cars enter each year. This truly is a museum on wheels!

As we watched, a team of mechanics tuned a 1954 550 Spyder in readiness for the Mille Miglia. The car is one of 16 factory Porsche entries this year. The sweet sound of the full-throttle

Designed to convey a sense of arrival and approachability, the Porsche Museum in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart was designed by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects of Vienna.

Right: Museums can offer quiet, contemplative atmospheres — but not at Porsche! Engine noise plays a large part in the experience, with distinctive Porsche soundtracks heard below specially built “sound showers.”

Here Sandra Button listens to a Porsche Traktor.

2-liter engine filled the glass-walled space, and one could immediately envision this aluminum-bodied beauty flying round the hairpins of the Carrera Panamericana with a top speed of 140 mph, to a class victory and third overall finish.

The 550 Spyder was of course made famous by actor James Dean, who aptly named his own 550 “my little bastard.”

Alongside the Spyder was the celebrated 6-cylinder 911 SC “Safari” Porsche, also being prepared for a race event. In 1978, this car was lifted and reinforced to enable it to compete in the grueling East African Safari Rally. The Swedish driver Björn Waldegård was comfortably in the lead until he hit a rock and finished a close but disappointing second. The paintwork on this vehicle is a stunning work of art, and when minor repairs were made to the windshield A-posts, Porsche brought in an artist to return the paint to original. Attention to detail takes on a whole new meaning at Porsche.

Leaving the werkstatt behind us, Achim guided us up the central escalator, which rises through the entire building.

Divided into 13 thematic areas, the museum covers all aspects of Porsche past, present and future. In the section on Porsche Before 1948, the electric wheel-hub motor of a 1900

Lohner-Porsche “Semper Vivus” (Latin for “always alive”) is proudly displayed. Ferdinand Porsche was dissatisfied with the limitations of the battery-driven vehicle and added two petrol-powered De Dion engines under the seat, each driving an electric dynamo, thus increasing the automobile’s range dramatically. In this unique design, the electricity generated by the dynamos flowed to the wheel-hub motors while the surplus power was transferred to the batteries, thus using the petrol engines as charging stations. The Semper Vivus is widely recognized as the world’s first hybrid.

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Above: The Porsche Type 64, also known as the VW Aerocoupe, is considered by many to be the first automobile from what was to become the Porsche company.

Right: The last remaining Porsche 64 was restored for Dr. Porsche by Battista Farina in 1947. In 1949 the car was sold to Austrian motorcycle racer Otto MatheÌ, who won the Alpine Rally with it in 1950.

Close by, mounted on a pastel green plinth, stood an allaluminum shell of Ferdinand Porsche’s 1939 Type 64, a stunning accolade to his passion for speed with style.

Designed specifically for the Berlin-Rome long distance race, the aerodynamic Type 64 is considered the forefather of all Porsches and was one of Ferdinand’s personal favorites for its avant-garde technology and styling.

Not so far away, I spied one of my personal favorites: the 1947 Porsche Type 360 Cisitalia. It is nigh on impossible to believe that this magnificent piece of engineering was built almost 70 years ago; with its 385 horsepower and a top speed of 190 mph, it is a remarkable piece of machinery by any standard. And yet it never raced. Commissioned by Italian entrepreneur and racing enthusiast Piero Dusio, the car never made it beyond testing, apparently due to Dusio’s financial difficulties. This single-seater Cisitalia is powered by a 1.5-liter, super-charged, 12-cylinder engine housed in a superlight alloy body and, depending on race conditions, the driver has the choice of two-wheel or four-wheel drive on the fly. Built for thunderous performance, this untried, pristine Porsche race car is the stuff of dreams for a car enthusiast!

Meanwhile, I sauntered on past the 1948 Porsche 356 “Number 1” Roadster, and the iconic 1950 Porsche-designed Volkswagen Beetle to see Sandra standing on a pad under a small dome looking as though she was about to be beamed up to the Starship Enterprise. The museum features three audio pads in which the sounds of various Porsche vehicles are played in rotation, so you can experience the staccato knock of the Porsche Traktor compared to the whine of a 917 or the roar of the 550 Spyder.

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We continued on to the salon on Product History, where we were treated to an array of significant Porsches displayed in chronological order, starting with the 1948 356 all the way through to the 2011 Carrera S Coupe. In particular, there were over two dozen 911s, including the groundbreaking prototypes of the 2.0 and the RSR Turbo. Interestingly, we learned that the first 911 was originally named the 901, but since Peugeot had already claimed the three-digit appellation with the zero in the middle, Porsche changed its 901 to the magical number 911. Since its debut in 1963, more than 820,000 units of the 911 have been manufactured right there in Stuttgart—a testament to the success of a marque and model that Ferry Porsche described as “the only car that you can drive from an African safari to Le Mans, then to the theatre and onto the streets of New York.”

And so on to one of my favorite galleries, the one for the Targa Florio. Bearing in mind that the Targa Florio was one of the world’s oldest road races, and each lap was a grueling 45 miles over poor roads with over 700 curves, Porsche’s victories are noteworthy. Here we saw the 718 W-RS Spyder, also known as the “Grandmother” due to its exceptionally long motor racing career (1961–64), as well as the superlight 1970 908/03 Spyder with its foam-reinforced plastic body—a featherweight at just 1,200 pounds and a three-time winner, including a first-place victory at the Targa Florio in 1970.

Spoiled for choice, we coasted through gallery after gallery of unusual Porsches, seeing a fire truck, a traktor and a 911 police car. In the section titled Studies we learned how various innovations were tried and tested, how the iconic 911 silhouette originated and evolved to what we recognize today,

Left: Ferdinand “Ferry” Porsche with his own creation, the Porsche 356B, in 1960.

Below: Ferry Porsche sold his design for the Type 360 to the Cisitalia company to raise one million francs to bail out his father, who had been arrested by the French in 1946.

“THE PORSCHE MUSEUM IS MORE THAN AN EXHIBIT OF SOME RATHER IMPRESSIVE MOTOR CARS; IT IS A LIVING, BREATHING TRIBUTE TO PORSCHE, WHICH IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING. ” — MA RTIN E . BUT TON

The 2-liter, 8-cylinder Porsche 718 W-RS Spyder gained class victories in the 1962 Targa Florio as well as the Nürburgring 1000 km, where this car was third overall both times.

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The distinctive Martini & Rossi–liveried Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo 2.14 built for the 1974 season featured a massive turbo-charger matched by a large rear wing.

and why some advancements were dropped before they ever went into production or appeared on a race track.

That brings me to another of my favorite cars in the museum —another that was honed and tested, but never raced—the 1969 Porsche 917 PA Spyder, also known as the CanAm Spyder. This virgin white 917 packs a monstrous 16-cylinder 800-hp engine. Or to be more precise, the CanAm has two 8-cylinder engines mated together behind the cockpit in an impressively audacious attempt to outperform competitors’ 8-liter engines for a title in the prestigious CanAm Series.

Unfortunately, after extensive testing the 917 PA was never raced because the engine was too long and too heavy, making the car practically undrivable. Still, wouldn’t you like to take that baby out and hear her roar!

Just when you think you have seen every possible Porsche model of importance there are more galleries filled with even more fascinating and distinguished cars. Take the Le Mans salon for instance: a parade of 10 Porsches that between them notched up no less than 16 overall victories at Le Mans. In this group are the 1977 936 Spyder, with a top speed of 225 mph, that alone won the punishing 24-hour race three times; and the 911 GT1, with its ultralight chassis, that flew into first place in 1998, proving that elegant styling and high performance are not necessarily incongruous. Over in the Motorsports section there is the rugged all-wheel-drive 959 that won the ParisDakar in 1986 while its teammate came in second—and even the 959 service vehicle placed sixth! Across the gallery was a whole armada of racing 917s, including the “Pink Pig” (yes, it is actually pink and marked like a butcher’s pork map) and “The Taxi,” the famously blue and orange Gulf Oil–branded 917 KH Coupe, which in its retirement was used to give VIP rides around Weissach.

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Once the tour was complete, our considerate host declared it was time for some refreshment, so we adjourned to the Christophorus Restaurant on the upper level. Once again it was evident that attention to detail is the Porsche mantra; the restaurant’s seats are upholstered in the same soft leather Porsche uses on their cars, and tiny replicas of the marque’s most celebrated models adorn the tables and countertops.

The walls are covered with back-lit riddling racks, and above the glass doors of the well-stocked humidor there is classic black-and-white artwork depicting Porsche victories. This room exudes luxury and heritage with an international flair, as demonstrated by the menu, which is also crafted in Porsche leather by werkstatt apprentices, and boasts the best steak from Kansas, Coronas from Havana and wines from the local Rems Valley (notably the wine Essenziell from the Zimmerle family winery, just seven miles away). I admit I thoroughly enjoyed indulging in a solid sampling of all three offerings.

This was indeed the perfect place to end our day in Porsche Paradise!

For me, the Porsche Museum is more than an exhibit of some rather impressive motor cars; it is a living, breathing tribute to Porsche, which is constantly evolving. To my mind, one of the most exciting features of the museum is the constant rotation of the vehicles through the workshop and out onto the road and racetrack. As Achim reminded me before we said our Auf Wiedersehens, each season more than 500 racing Porsches are deployed to 30 countries on 4 continents to be driven and tested by enthusiasts and professionals, ensuring that the Porsche marque remains at the forefront of automotive innovation and design.

I hope my invitation is in the mail!

Above: The 911 is probably the most important car built by Porsche. A 1965 911 2.0 Coupe is shown here.

Above Right: Museum Director Achim Stejskal in the Carrera Panamericana Porsche 550 Spyder.

Right: Heading a lineup of racing Porsches is the Porsche 959 from the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally.

The Porsche 917/20 Coupe, especially made for Le Mans in 1971, is a one-off hybrid between the shortand long-tail versions of the 917. Its distinctive livery earned it the nickname “Pink Pig.”

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Cars in the Lives of Pebble Beach Insiders

Gordon Murray amongst the Honorary Judges at the Pebble Beach Concours (right) and in the seat of his new T.50 (below).

GORDON MURRAY CBE MY PERSPECTIVE

Born and educated in South Africa, Professor Gordon Murray designed, built and raced his own sports car, the IGM Ford, while in his early 20s. He joined the Brabham Formula 1 Team as Technical Director in 1969, winning two world championships in 17 years there. He joined McLaren Racing as Technical Director in 1988, immediately winning three consecutive championships. Then, in 1990, Mr. Murray helped to establish McLaren Cars Ltd, which created the F1 road car and the successful MercedesBenz SLR McLaren program. In July 2008, Gordon Murray Design was established to develop innovative and disruptive automotive manufacturing technology, and this August 4, Gordon Murray Automotive revealed its new supercar — the T.50.

Here we ask Murray to talk about his passion for cars.

But first we excerpt a 2015 Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum where he discusses the process of creating and racing the McLaren F1.

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How We Built the McLaren F1 and Won at Le Mans I went to McLaren for three years, I designed for them three cars, and we made three world championships. So I decided I needed a new challenge — and luckily for me, Ron [Dennis] and Mansour Ojjei, the other directors, were talking about expanding the engineering group to a road car company.

I’d always wanted to outdo Ferrari with a supercar, so it was a good opportunity. And it’s a real fairytale story because it was taking Formula 1 technology — all of the things I had learned in Formula 1 — and putting them into what was hopefully going to be one of the best engineered cars ever. It was the first ground-effect road car in the world, the first carbon car, the first car to feature active aerodynamics, and active brake cooling . . . the firsts go on and on. And Paul Rosche designed a magic 6.1-liter V12 for it.

I had a totally clean sheet of paper to go and find the building, kit the building out, employ everybody on the team, design the car — every single nut and bolt — and control the whole thing. And that just doesn’t happen these days in the car business. I don’t think that’s happened since the Bugatti days to be honest, and it’s probably unlikely to happen again. Most of the cars we see today are done by committee or quite a big group of people. My total design team working with me on this was six guys. We did our own gearbox, our own air conditioning, our own body, chassis, brakes, instruments, everything — with just six people. So I had a lot of fun doing that car.

Then a couple of customers came to us, Thomas Bscher and Ray Bellm, and said, “There’s a new world championship for GT cars, and we want to enter the car.” I had said to the other directors all the way through this design, “Just don’t make me

design a race car that’s going to compromise the road car. It’s a road car, it’s got proper luggage space, the air conditioning works, it’s got a decent sound system. Don’t make me go racing.” But these guys put us under pressure; they said, “If you don’t do it, we’ll take it to some other shop down the road” — which would have been dreadful of course. So I caved in at the end. And we went racing and won the first and second world championship.

Then, six months later, after I’d given in and built a racing car, they said, “Now we want to go to Le Mans.” And I said, “That’s ridiculous. That’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s still a road car. It’s just a road car with a fire extinguisher and a roll cage in it.” And we actually had to reduce reduce the horsepower by another 600 to go racing. It was silly. But again they put us under a lot of pressure. So we went to Le Mans and came first, third, fourth and fifth — which I still can’t believe.

You have said you are “100% happy” with the new T.50, which returns to principles applied to the McLaren F1, with ground-breaking technology and aerodynamics. What was the biggest technical challenge that you faced with this new car? The biggest technical challenge we had with our Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 Supercar program was undoubtedly the very low weight target of 980 kg.

Our research showed the average weight of the current batch of supercars was north of 1,000 kg, and as my McLaren F1 design was around 1,100 kg I really wanted to improve on that.

Saving weight is not only down to modern technology and materials, it's also a state of mind. Every single component on the T.50, no matter how small, was analyzed to micro level.

We held Weight Watchers meetings every week for all the function groups on the car to help control the design and meet our target.

In the end we achieved 986 kg, which is an outstanding achievement for our focused design team.

Why Cars? I grew up in South Africa, where my father was a motor mechanic who worked on racing cars in his spare time. In 1951, at the age of six, I can remember watching him working on Isa Henderson’s Fiat Topolino special. As a family we attended some form of motorsport event at least once a month, and from that age onward I never wanted to be anything but a racing driver. During my teenage years I raced anything I could get my hands on, including home-built soapbox cars and modified cycles. In 1965 I began designing a racing sports car and a 4-cylinder racing engine based on a Ford 105E block and head, and following a two-year build, I raced the car for two seasons, in 1967 and 1968, with some

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Cars in the Lives of Pebble Beach Insiders

Gordon shows off details of his new T.50 automobile.

speeds of today’s event it was a real thrill to slide the old car around the mountain hairpin bends to the applause of the everfanatical Italian crowd!

success. At the end of 1969, I boarded a converted cargo ship for the U.K., and within six months of arriving in England I was working in the Brabham design office.

If you could go back in time, what historic automotive event or person would you want to see and why? I would like to go back in time to see the Targa Florio in the early 1960s.

I love the romantic period when we had the Targa and the Mille Miglia, and we raced Grand Prix cars at the Nürburgring, the original Spa and the Interlagos circuits, and Le Mans with no chicanes. Safely was the obvious driver for change, but the combination of the accessible road racing circuits and the evocative period sports cars of the sixties and seventies made for a great spectacle. I drove a 1939 BMW Streamliner in the 1995 Mille Miglia, and even at the reduced

Right: Gordon Murray with several Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum panelists.

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What Pebble Beach Concours moment do you remember most? My favorite memory was a few years ago when one of the cars to be judged in the technical innovation group was a 1913 Peugeot 3-liter racing car. I was well versed in the history of the early twin-cam engines and what giant-killers they were. I also knew of the stories behind how Miller and Bugatti received a lot of credit for early engines with twin camshafts and four valves per cylinder when Peugeot really deserved the recognition, but I had never had the opportunity to examine one in detail. I was in the middle of leading my team through the stories and the technicalities when I discovered the 3-liter engine was dry sumped. I thought that dry sumping was a 1950s invention — which just goes to show that one is never too old to learn!

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Concours Co-Chairmen Jules "J." Heumann and Lorin Tryon walk to the Winners Circle to name Best of Show.

OUR BEST OF SHOW WINNERS: The 1970s

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Under the guidance of new Concours CoChairmen Lorin Tryon and Jules “J.” Heumann, the early 1970s witnessed the introduction of a radically new two-tiered judging system wherein cars had to win their class before competing for Best of Show.

But even as the Classics came to the fore, the allure of postwar sports cars was recognized.

In 1973 Ferrari was given an ongoing class of its own, and the following year it became just the second marque to be accorded an ongoing perpetual trophy.

The importance of Classic Era cars was emphasized, and a greater variety of European and American Classics were shown. Increasingly over the next two decades marques such as Daimler, Mercedes-Benz, Hispano-Suiza, Isotta Fraschini, Cunningham, Packard, and Chrysler would make their way to the top. In 1972 Duesenberg became the first American marque to get its own ongoing class, and it would eventually become the winningest American marque, recording a total of six wins here.

1970 BEST OF SHOW

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1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Royal Limousine SHOWN BY J. B. NETHERCUTT

Three Daimler Double-Sixes have garnered the top award at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and each exhibits an imposing and magnificent presence.

Daimlers have sometimes been chosen to serve Britain’s Royal Family, and when he purchased this car in 1968, J. B. Nethercutt was told by the previous owner that it had been used at Buckingham Palace — but he had his doubts since the

car was then being housed in the chicken coup of a very modest home in Kent.

After an 18-month restoration, prior to competing at the Pebble Beach Concours, J. B. drove this car more than 3,000 miles to the 18th annual meeting of the Classic Car Club of America, held in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania — where the car placed first overall with 97 points.

Somewhere along the way, J. B. nicknamed it “The Gutless Wonder” because he felt its V12 sleeve valve engine was underpowered — although it was as quiet and smooth as original ads promised. The engine also had a tendency to solidify in cold temperatures, so on several early mornings, the Nethercutt team had to bath the engine in warm water and change the oil weight to get it running.

The car’s two-tone color scheme underscores its formal elegance and length of line, and it easily beat the competition at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance that summer.

Fittingly, the win with this Double Six marked the second time Nethercutt had recorded two consecutive wins.

1971 BEST OF SHOW 1927 Mercedes-Benz S Three Door Tourer SHOWN BY OWEN OWENS

A prewar Mercedes-Benz was among the few prewar cars shown at the first Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance,

1970 Best of Show

in 1950, and the marque was often represented on the competition field in ensuing years — but it didn’t garner the top prize until this 1927 Mercedes-Benz S Tourer, shown by Owen Owens, was named Best of Show at Pebble Beach in 1971.

J. B. Nethercutt came close to scoring a consecutive threepeat of wins, but his 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Brewster Marlborough Town Car had to settle for recognition as winner of the Reserve Trophy and the Lucius Beebe Award.

Just two years later, a 1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K Cabriolet Coupe, shown by media magnate Otis Chandler, would score another win for the marque. And over time, Mercedes-

1971 Best of Show

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1972 Best of Show

1974 Best of Show

Million-Guiet, the car was rebodied in 1926 or 1927 by Henri Labourdette. Regrettably, its history through the next thirty years has been lost. Somehow the car made its way to Sepulveda, California, where Jules Heumann purchased it at a probate sale in 1963. The car had been stored for years in a dilapidated old barn with holes in its roof. On dry days, dirt sifted down onto the car’s crankcase. On rainy days, that dirt turned to mud.

1973 Best of Show

Benz would be recognized with a total of eight Best of Show trophies, making it second only to Bugatti among the winningest marques at Pebble Beach.

1972 BEST OF SHOW 1922 Hispano-Suiza H6B Labourdette Skiff/Torpedo SHOWN BY MR. & MRS. JULES M. HEUMANN

The marque Hispano-Suiza dates back to the early 1900s, but it earned its reputation for excellence supplying engines to Allied air aces during World War I. Thereafter, at the Paris Auto Salon of 1919, the marque introduced the H6 to the motoring world. It was widely acclaimed as the most advanced luxury car of the year. Its speed and handling, elegance and grace, went unmatched through much of the next decade.

This 1922 Hispano-Suiza H6B was first purchased in Paris by a Mr. Sanz. Originally bearing a formal body by

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Restoring the car was no easy task. Heumann did the work himself over the course of nine years, completing the restoration and bringing the car to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 1972.

That same year, Heumann and Lorin Tryon had agreed to jointly take on the task of overseeing the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance as its Co-Chairmen. When it was time to announce the Best of Show winner, Heumann was more than a little surprised; the award, decided by secret ballot of the Chief Class Judges and the Chief Honorary Judge, was to go to his Hispano-Suiza.

Chief Honorary Judge Strother MacMinn called Heumann “a superb craftsman in his hobby” and declared that his restoration “set the pace” for future winners.

“That was surely the most thrilling day of my life,” Heumann said later.

After the win, Heumann drove this car throughout the United States and Europe. The car is now in the Keller Collection.

1976 Best of Show

1973 BEST OF SHOW

1974 BEST OF SHOW

1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Cabriolet A

1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Brewster Regent

SHOWN BY MRS. OTIS CHANDLER

SHOWN BY M. L. POST

Between 1936 and 1940, Mercedes-Benz produced a total of 419 540Ks — named for the powerful 5.4-liter straight-eight engine delivering 115 horsepower.

This delightful Springfield Rolls-Royce Phantom I (chassis S377LR with body 7131) is said to be the first Regent Convertible Coupe listed in the documents of Rolls-Royce of America. The Regent is sometimes confused with a Playboy Roadster because it has a similar two-seater-with-rumbleseat configuration, but the Regent was available only as an original not a replacement body for early Phantoms, and the workmanship was superior.

A number of standard bodies were offered by the marque’s Sindelfingen factory, including various Cabriolets and a Special Roadster — but this particular 540K bears a Special Cabriolet A commissioned by a client in Paris and combining the classic lines of a cabriolet with the raked V windshield of the roadster. There is just one other Special Cabriolet A, and it is on a 500K.

1975 Best of Show

The car has had several well-known owners, including American operatic tenor James Melton, Tom Barrett and General William Lyon. Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler purchased it in the early 1970s and had it restored by Richard Martin.

In keeping with early Concours, where cars were often exhibited by women donning the latest Parisian fashions, Otis Chandler entered the car in the name of his wife, Marilyn. At the time it was a lively two-tone green. Its livery changed to bright red during a later restoration.

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It is likely this car was conceived as a Christmas gift; it was first delivered on December 24, 1929 to Ross Ambler Curran of Burlingame, California, and it spent the whole of its life West of the Mississippi River until being sold to Otto Rausch in Germany in 2008.

shown in striking black and green livery. The rear end has also been returned to its correct configuration. This Bugatti is now in the Patterson Collection.

1975 BEST OF SHOW

1927 Packard 343 Murphy Convertible Sedan

1934 Packard 1101 Convertible Victoria SHOWN BY ROBERT MILHOUS

The Packard marque has garnered a total of four wins at the Pebble Beach Concours, and two of those wins took place in the mid-1970s.

1976 BEST OF SHOW 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante SHOWN BY WILLIAM HARRAH

With his fourth Best of Show trophy in hand, William Harrah tied J. B. Nethercutt once again. Regrettably, this was to be Harrah’s last win. The casino magnate died in 1978.

This Atalante (chassis 57551) was a bright mustard and cream when owned by William Harrah, but it has more recently been

1977 Best of Show

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1977 BEST OF SHOW SHOWN BY MR. & MRS. PHIL HILL

This is one of three Packard 343s fitted with a Murphy Convertible Sedan body, and it is believed to be the only surviving example. The body, designed by the legendary W. Everett Miller, was a Murphy specialty, incorporating remarkably thin “clear-vision” cast brass pillars.

The Fairbank family, which was heavily involved in Canada’s rail and oil industries, originally purchased this car for $9,200, and it remained in their possession until Phil Hill purchased it in 1967. Hill, his partner Ken Vaughn, and Bob Mosier, who was the first employee of “Hill and Vaughn,” worked together to restore the car, and their efforts culminated in Hill’s second Best of Show win at the Pebble Beach Concours. Its lilac paint scheme was modelled after a well preserved original Packard that Hill spotted during a visit to William Harrah’s Collection.

1978 Best of Show

“To restore a car to the level of a Pebble Beach winner is a really tough job, especially if you do the work yourself,” said Hill later. “In fact, after doing my Pierce in 1954, it was several years before I could bring myself to even think about doing another.

“In some cases, when the restoration is particularly troublesome, you almost hate the car when it’s done. I never felt that way about the Pierce, but for a while I wasn’t so fond of that ’27 Packard. The whole effort to restore it was so great that it was a good while before I could actually like the car again. Happily that feeling didn’t last.

Now, without fail, when I take that car out, it pleases me more than I ever thought it could.

“Sometimes the reward for a restoration comes later — sometimes much later, even years later, when you meet the car again and are able to appreciate it in a much freer and more wholesome way.”

The Packard is now with the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

1978 BEST OF SHOW 1929 Duesenberg J LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaeton SHOWN BY PETER ROSI

A former marine who became a real estate developer, Pete Rosi’s love of cars began with a Model T Ford, and as a teenager hot rods drew his eye. But his passion grew to focus on American classics, which he loved to not only own and restore and share in concours but to drive — all over the United States and Canada.

and they are highly prized among collectors. This particular Duesenberg (J-223) was delivered new to the Los Angeles area, and eventually passed into the hands of Texas collector Dave Pennington, who participated with it regularly in various Duesenberg events, so “Big Red” became well known. Rosi purchased the car in 1973 and painstakingly restored it, taking Best of Show at the 1977 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club National Reunion before entering it at Pebble.

Rosi sold “Big Red” to New Jersey collector Robert Rooke in 1981. Thereafter, it went into seclusion for three and a half decades, until its purchase in 2016 by the Lehrman Collection, where it now resides.

1979 BEST OF SHOW 1931 Chrysler CG LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaeton SHOWN BY MR. & MRS. GERRY JENSEN

The 1979 win by this 1931 Chrysler CG is the first of two wins by Chrysler at the Pebble Beach Concours.

He hailed from St. Charles, Illinois, so the win by his Duesenberg J LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaeton marked the first by an entry from East of the Mississippi River. The Concours was fast becoming a national contest, and it would soon cross the Atlantic, drawing cars from throughout Europe.

Rosi later compared the Pebble Beach Concours to “the World Series and Super Bowl all rolled into one” and said the effort to show a car at Pebble was “like climbing Mount Everest.”

As for winning? “It does have an effect on your life. That glow. . . . I still have that glow more than twenty years later.”

Identifiable by their distinctive “sweep panel,” just eighteen Duesenberg J LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaetons were produced,

1979 Best of Show

Traditions: Charity Drawing

Amidst the 2019 Concours Awards Ceremony, Bill Perocchi and Sandra Button announce the annual charity donations.

Jay Leno regularly hosts our Charity Drawing — and in 2009 he raffled off his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger's leather bomber jacket.

A HISTORY OF HELPING PEOPLE IN NEED The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance was born in tandem with the Pebble Beach Road Races at the urging of car enthusiasts who wanted to race and celebrate great cars. But soon after their start, proceeds from ticket sales were directed to charity. And when the two events separated, the Concours continued its charitable giving.

The American Cancer Society and the Monterey County Heart Association were very early recipients of charity dollars, and then for just over a decade, from 1961 through 1971, the Concours partnered with the Community Hospital Auxiliary, which handled everything from publicity to publications. In this same period, artist Eldon Dedini sometimes donated his original poster art for charity raffles, and later poster artists followed his example. Two of our early poster raffles were hosted by Bob Hope and Merv Griffin! Entrants also donated cars and trips for these raffles.

In 1974 the Concours joined forces with United Way Monterey County, which went on to oversee all Concours volunteers for well over two decades under the firm and devoted leadership of Richard Murnighan, for whom our Volunteer-of-the-Year Trophy is named. And the United Way remains one of our benefiting charities today.

In 1975 Pebble Beach Company created the Pebble Beach Company Foundation, which now serves as the primary charitable partner to the Concours. Through this foundation, which is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit, the Concours now benefits more than 90 charitable organizations.

While early raffles were sporadic and often spur-of-themoment, the Concours Charity Drawing began in earnest in 1992 when longtime sponsor Mercedes-Benz donated a car to help raise funds for our charities. This drawing is now

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Several of our Phil Hill Scholars and our Jules "J." & Sally Heumann Scholar pose by cars awaiting entry to our show field in 2019.

a regular part of the Concours awards show and is usually hosted by Jay Leno. Despite the cancellation of the Concours in 2020, the Charity Drawing was still held this year, thanks to the generosity of Lexus, which donated a newly introduced 2021 LC 500 Convertible to help raise funds for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Monterey County.

It was in the mid-1990s that the Concours also began to fund scholarships for students of the automotive arts, ensuring that great cars will continue to be created and cared for in years to come. A scholarship fund was initially established at ArtCenter College of Design in the name of longtime Concours Chief Honorary Judge Strother MacMinn. More recently, the Concours has established scholarships named for racing great Phil Hill and for longtime Co-Chairman Jules “J.” Heumann and his wife Sally. Phil Hill Scholarships currently fund restoration students at McPherson College and design students at the Academy of Art University, and the Jules “J.” & Sally Heumann Scholarship goes to a McPherson student.

The Concours’ total annual charitable giving has greatly expanded over the years, from amounts of a few thousand dollars to more than $2 million in recent years. Thanks to many supporters, the 2020 Pebble Beach Concours raised a total of $1,240,450 even without a show.

Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Distributes More than $1 Million to Local Charity Partners FUNDRAISING EFFORTS CONTINUE EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF THE EVENT Despite the cancellation of the 2020 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, efforts to raise funds for local charities never stopped. Each year, proceeds from the Concours support many worthwhile programs on the Monterey Peninsula and now, more than ever, those organizations are in need of help.

“Despite cancellation of this year’s show, we are pleased to announce that more than $1 million dollars will be distributed to local charities," said Bill Perocchi, Pebble Beach Company CEO. “We are so grateful to Pebble Beach Concours Chairman Sandra Button and the many car manufacturers, owners, judges, and sponsors from around the world who stepped up under such difficult circumstances to ensure that our local charities would continue to receive funding during this time.”

Perocchi and Button met September 3, via Zoom, with several Concours charities to relay the good news.

“Since its beginning, the Pebble Beach Concours has had two goals,” said Button, “to celebrate great cars, and to raise money for people in need. We are proud to have raised almost $30 million for our local charity partners since inception of the event in 1950. And even though we can’t gather to celebrate great cars this year, we were determined to support our local charities. Our heartfelt thanks go out to the many generous donors who helped us raise funds for those in need.”

Through its primary charitable partner, Pebble Beach Company Foundation, the Concours helps to support more

2 0 2 1 L E X U S LC 5 0 0 C O N V E R T I B L E GOES TO ONE LUCKY CHARITY D R AW I N G PA R T I C I PA N T

Watch the KSBW news announcement of this charity donation.

than 90 local nonprofit organizations, many focusing their efforts on children. Among the Concours charities receiving donations September 3 were three local hospitals (Montage Health, Natividad, and Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital) providing around the clock medical care to COVID patients; as well as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monterey County, Kinship Center, and United Way Monterey County.

A donation was also provided to the Community Foundation for Monterey County, earmarked specifically for the Monterey County Fire Relief Fund.

The annual Pebble Beach Concours Charity Drawing concluded on Sunday, Sept. 13, when one lucky ticketholder won a 2021 LC 500 Convertible donated by Lexus, a longtime partner to both the Concours and Pebble Beach Company.

The brass drum stopped spinning, a ticket was drawn, and the name of the lucky winner was announced: Joe M. of Pebble Beach.

There was an even bigger winner, of course: All funds from this drawing went directly to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monterey County.

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Cars line up on the first fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links for the 2019 Ferrari Concours, held in tandem with the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

36 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Insider