Next week the scenic Californian city of Monterey will be flooded with car enthusiasts eager to attend one or more of the many fantastic events like the Monterey Motorsports Reunion and the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Over the years the ever expanding auctions have become events in their own right, many of them lasting for more than one day. As our first preview of the Monterey Motoring Week, we today take a look at three cars to be offered by the three biggest auctioneers; RM Auctions, Bonhams and Gooding & Co.
One of the more unusual cars in the RM line-up is this Iso Daytona. Built for an Italian exotic car dealer by Neri & Bonacini, it was destined for series production. Sadly only two to five examples were constructed. This is the prototype, which has been carefully prepared for racing. The rare and beautiful machine is estimated to sell for a hefty $550,000 - $750,000.
For their annual auction at the Quail Lodge, Bonhams has consigned the complete collection of noted Porsche collector Michael Amalfitano, who passed away in December of last year. The star car of the collection is this Porsche 917 Interserie Spyder. The chassis actually started life as one of the John Wyer / Gulf 917K Coupes, taking two wins before crashing heavily at Le Mans in 1970. The repaired chassis re-appeared in its current configuration in the 1972 Interserie championship in the hands of Ernst Kraus. It raced for the better part of two seasons with commendable results against very stiff competition. Amalfitano acquired the car in 1987 and it has since been completely overhauled by Gunnar Racing. The spectacular 917 is offered ready to race.
Gooding traditionally provides the week's finale with their Pebble Beach auction. One of the many great cars in their catalog is this Maserati 200SI Prototipo. As the name suggests, it was the very first of the line and it was used for development purposes for three seasons during which it was driven by almost all of the company's works drivers with considerable success. Because of its regular upgrades, the car was often raced with bare metal panels. It has been restored to this configuration and regularly raced before the current owner decided to part with it. Chassis 2401 has a stiff $2.4 - $2.7 million pre-sale estimate.

Enjoy the links:

1966 Iso Daytona - Images, Specifications and Information

1955 - 1957 Maserati 200SI Prototipo - Images, Specifications and Information

1971 Porsche 917 Interserie Spyder - Images, Specifications and Information