One of the anchor events of the classic car week on the Monterey Peninsula is the annual Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion held on Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. This year's edition underlined why, attracting over 70,000 spectators over four days, who witnessed around 500 historic racing cars take to the track. These ranged from a 1911 National that competed in the first ever Indy 500 to the BMW M3 GTR that clinched a class win in the 2001 Petit Le Mans. The latter was part of the centennial celebrations of featured marque BMW. Additionally, the Motorsports Reunion also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Can-Am and TransAm championships. Among the many other highlights were a race headlined by no fewer than three Ferrari 250 GTOs and the return to the track of the all-conquering ex-Juan Manuel Fangio III Toyota-Eagle Mk III.
You can read all about the 2016 Monterey Motorsports Reunion in our concise report, which is illustrated by a group-by-group 280-shot gallery of the event itself an an additional 200-shot gallery from the Pre-Reunion held at Laguna Seca the weekend before.

This weekend, the exclusive Pebble Beach golf club hosted the 66th annual Concours d'Elegance. It forms the grand finale of a week packed with events and auctions. At this year's edition BMW's centennial and the 50th anniversary of Ford's breakthrough Le Mans win were celebrated. There were also special classes for Bizzarrini, special bodied Fiats, Chapron coachwork and Delahayes. The long day ended with the presentation of the coveted 'Best of Show', which this year was the Lancia Astura Pinin Farina Bocca Cabriolet, which we featured earlier this week.
Our photographers were on the lawn from dawn till dusk to capture all the highlights to illustrate our concise report. The results are presented in a class-by-class 280-shot gallery from the Concours d'Elegance and an additional 40-shot gallery from the curtailed Tour d'Elegance.

Yesterday, the Monterey Car Week celebrated its grand finale at the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach golf course with the 66th annual Concours d'Elegance. The culmination of that event is the announcement of the coveted 'Best of Show' award at the very end of the afternoon. This year, three cars were nominated and ultimately this fabulous Lancia Astura Pinin Farina Cabriolet was called forward to receive the prized award. Finished in an understated black, the winning machine combined the very sophisticated 'third series' Astura underpinnings with a glorious Cabriolet body designed and built by Pinin Farina. It was one of six similar cars built for a Lancia dealer named Bocca. Among its later owners were legendary guitar player Eric Clapton and Pininfarina themselves, who showed the car in their museum for many years. The current owner spent the last six years restoring the car and the results are absolutely stunning, making the 'Bocca' Cabriolet a well deserved winner.
In the coming days, we will take a closer look at all the major events and auctions with detailed reports and extensive galleries, so keep your eye on this page.

In our travels across the Monterey Peninsula, we also stopped by the Gooding & Co. marquee. Here we spent some time to get a closer look at two of the cars that headline this weekend's Pebble Beach Auctions.
The first of this pair is a great Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza. Built in 1933, it was raced extensively in period by a succession of Genova-based owners into the 1950s. Among its subsequent owners were prominent collectors Peter Giddings and Tom Hollfelder. This fabulous 8C 2300 is estimated to sell for $12 - 15 million.
Like the 8C Alfa Romeo, the Bugatti Type 55 is also thinly disguised Grand Prix car. The example due to cross the block at the Gooding Pebble Beach Auctions is the only one of its type to be raced at the Mille Miglia. It ran as high as second before it was forced to retire with a punctured fuel tank. Thereafter, it is believed to have also served as Jean Bugatti's personal car. In later years, chassis 55213 was part of the great collections of Peter Livanos and Nicolas Seydoux. It will require in excess of $10 million to pry it away from its current custodian.

This weekend, at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the annual Monterey Car Week kicked off with the traditional Monterey Motorsports Pre-Reunion. As the name suggests, this is the warm-up event for Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion that will start on Thursday. With many of the cars entered for the big event already out on track, the Pre-Reunion offered us the chance to look at two of the very best in more detail.
The first is the Mazda 767B, which was built for the 1989 World Championship. This Group C racer is powered by a four-rotor engine and between the three built scored many class wins throughout the year. All three are featured now with the latest addition chassis 767 - 002, which debuted at Mazda Raceway following a two-year restoration. It will be one of a quartet of four-rotor Mazdas due to race next weekend.
The big feature during the Motorsports Reunion is the BMW centennial. This has prompted the American arm of the German manufacturer to pull out all the stops and field seven historic cars from their collection. One of them is the 3.0 CSL IMSA we featured last week, while another is the much more modern M3 GTR. Powered by a V8 engine, it was as successful as it was controversial and it was actually banned after just one season. The example entered was the sixth built and the class winner at Petit Le Mans back in 2001. It has recently been restored to its patriotic Petit Le Mans winning livery, which originally had been applied out of respect for the victims of 9/11.

The Monterey Car Week is only a few days away and before we start our coverage from this year's events, we offer one final warm-up. At the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, BMW's centennial will take centre stage. The entry list is packed with BMWs but our eye was particularly caught by the notion that all five 3.0 CSL IMSAs will be united for the first time in many years. Based on the ETCC winning CSLs, these altogether more extreme version of the CSL featured 24-valve, 3.5-litre engines and very wide wheel arches. They were raced very successfully by a works effort, resulting in numerous wins, including the Sebring 12 Hours and Daytona 24 Hours outright. Over the years, we have seen three of these race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca as can be seen in our 64-shot gallery. This should grow during the next few weeks with more images and details of the other two.
A past visitor to the 'Reunion' is this Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0, which has now been consigned to the Bonhams Quail Lodge sale. One of just 53 built, it was raced extensively in period. In addition to the 'Dinkel Acker' car our 108-shot gallery features three more examples in detail, including the one owned in period by James Hunt. Another grand German car to cross the block at the Bonhams auction is this Mercedes-Benz 500 K Cabriolet A. Ordered new by a German living London, it has been well taken care of in collections all over the world and has most recently resided in German ownership after a full Kienle restoration.
Another Porsche making waves recently was the 924 Carrera GTR. We captured one of these very rare machines in action at Dijon and Le Mans, while a sister car sold for close to GBP 500,000 at the recent Silverstone Classic sale hosted by Silverstone Auctions.

Ferrari is best known for producing glorious V12 engined cars but also built some fabulous six-cylinder powered cars. One of the very best is this 206 P Dino built in 1965. It was one of a pair of prototypes for a small batch of mid-engined sports racers produced from 1966. The featured example was raced in sports car races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Nurburgring 1000 km before it was converted for use in hill climbs. In this guise, it was particularly successful with Ludovico Scarfiotti winning the European Championship. Having won 'Best of Show' at this year's Cavallino Classic, it is one of the nominees for the 'Peninsula Classics Best of the Best' award, which will be announced next week at Monterey. It was most recently in action at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed. Another striking Ferrari in action there was this 312 P Spyder. We have seen it many times in Berlinetta configuration but it was converted to its lighter Spyder form especially for driver David Franklin to set a quick time. It was back in its more familiar guise a fortnight later for the Le Mans Classic. Here it was joined by the one-off Aston Martin V8 RHAM/1. Built by Robin Hamilton Aston Martin (hence the name), it was raced at Le Mans and Silverstone several times. Its tendency to chew through brakes earned it the nickname 'Muncher'. Its final contemporary outing, fitted with a twin-turbo engine, came in a successful land speed record run while pulling a caravan. Its most recent owner decided to convert the one-off RHAM/1 back to its original, 1977 guise to race it at the Le Mans Classic.
During one of the opening ceremonies for this year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Nissan revealed a pair of fully functional Bladeglider Concepts. They are powered by a sophisticated electric drivetrain, which has been created together with Williams Advanced Engineering.

Yesterday, the hugely talented Chris Amon sadly passed away. Although a winner at Le Mans in 1966 with the Ford GT40 Mk2, and successful in other sports car events, the New Zeeland-born racer was famously unlucky in Formula 1. So much so that Mario Andretti once remarked that if Amon would have switched to the undertaking business, people would stop dying. Due to Amon's lack of luck, he has gone into history as the best F1 driver never to have won a World Championship Grand Prix. In a desperate attempt to turn his fortunes around, he went at it by himself in 1974 with the Cosworth DFV-engined Amon AF101. Designed by Gordon Fowell and built by John Thompson, it was not much of a success and lasted less than a season. In recent years, the AF101 has been restored to full running order and regularly raced in historic events.
One of the most fabulous cars consigned to the upcoming auctions is the very Jaguar D-Type that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright in 1956. Entered by great Jaguar privateer Ecurie Ecosse, it took over the charge from the three works cars, which were all delayed early in the race. Following its Le Mans victory it was raced at select events but of all C-Types and D-Types that won Le Mans, chassis XKD 501 is the best preserved. To be offered by RM Sotheby's on Friday August 19th, it is estimated to sell for over $20 million.
At this weekend's Spa 24 Hours, Porsche revealed the Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR. The MR is short for Manthey Racing and represents a kit that further lightens the GT4 Clubsport through the use of carbon-fibre panels and a polycarbonate windshield.

Continuing our previews of the upcoming Monterey auctions, we today take a look at some of the highlights of the Bonhams Quail Lodge Auction. Headlining the sale is this fabulous Bugatti Type 51, which was delivered new to the Earl Howe, who was a very gifted gentleman racer. He campaigned the car with considerable success for several years, competing in the Monaco Grand Prix three times and also winning at Brooklands. During his ownership, it was also raced by the great Tazio Nuvolari. Chassis 51121 then changed hands several times but since 1954 it has been in the ownership of just two discerning collectors.
Equally remarkable is the Stutz Series K Bearcat consigned by Wayne Carini of 'Chasing Classic Car' fame. He found this car in a barn in Georgia on the estate of the original owner, who acquired the car back in 1921. The Bearcat was in remarkable original condition and had only 10,000 original miles on the odometer. It has since been made operational and starred at Pebble Beach in 2015. The privilege of becoming only the third owner of this Bearcat will undoubtedly not come cheaply.
Following a sneak peak at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Bristol have now revealed more details of the V8 Bullet. Powered by a BMW-sourced V8, it is the first all-new Bristol in many years and combines a retro design with modern technology. Bristol promise that the V8 Bullet will be available for under GBP 250,000.
At Mid-Ohio, near the factory where the NSX is built, Acura provided a first glimpse of the new GT3 version of the company's new sports car. To comply with the regulations, it is powered by the twin-turbo V6 only. It is due to make its competition debut next season.