October 2024: Volume 15 No 2

Ferrari Club of America 2024 at Road America

The September 2024 Annual Meet was at the Road America race track The Ostoff Resort in nearby Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. All track activities were at the Road America facility. A record 700 participants registered. The event poster features a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, 1954 Ferrari 250 Monza and 1949 Ferrari 166MM.

San Marino Motor Classic

by Richard Pietruska
August 24 and 25, 2024 Lacy Park in San Marino, CA

This year the show featured about 14 automotive artists from the West Coast and Mexico. Each year the event showcases classic and cars from all eras. Saturday is set up and then a cocktail party for the artists and spectators. This year the temperature wasn’t a problem like last year. Interested in exhibiting next year? August 23 and 24, 2025, contact: rpietruska@gmail.com Limited number of spaces available.

Cobble Beach Concours 2024 - 10th Anniversary

Located on the shores of Georgian Bay, the Cobble Beach Concours celebrated its 10 anniversary in September 2024. The Jay KOka's official poster and event art for the anniversary event features the 2023 Best of Show winning 1929 Cord L-29 cabriolet. Two artists, Gord Walker and Koka plus photographer Hannu Palovuori exhibited their work.

Chantilly Arts & Elegance

Story and images by Klaus Wagger
The lineup was great, the weather just perfect, the turnout of visitors above my expectations + 28,000 visitors over 1 day and the location is outstanding - though a bit wide spread. The showfield is split up into two distinctive parts, the concours part which is absolutely massive and open and the clubs area which is a bit like an appendix pushing out to the side with a narrow connecting gap. General traffic was not bad but due to the location of the art tent at the entrance of the clubs area most visitors came from that direction. Among the exhibitors there were 3 artists from Artist’Auto: myself, Christine and Hervé Nys as well as Antoine Dufilho. Bottom line... we met some interesting people talked about projects and walked away with the hope that some of it might work out. As always.

Automobilia 2024

Tony Singer announced that his show Automobilia was cancelled for 2024. VintageAutoPosters.com is celebrating its 44th anniversary and to mark this significant milestone, Singer hosted a "pop-up" event Sunday ~ Wednesday, August 11-14 at the Crossroads Shopping Center. "This was my largest single display and we enjoyed good attendance, as well as strong sales". VintageAutoPosters.com Contact: tony@singer356.com

Monterey Car Week 2024 Perspective

Story and images by Rob Alen

Monterey Car Week is getting bigger and bigger with more events. This year Laguna Seca celebrated its 50th anniversary of historic racing which started with the Monterey Historic races that's become today's Rolex Motorsports Reunion.

Road racing on the Monterey Peninsula goes back to the 1950s as a means of promoting real estate properties in the Del Monte Forest. It transitioned to Laguna Seca in 1957,which has seen many famous cars and drivers who now appear at the Historics and Reunion. The 1989 Historics marked Aston Martin with a recreation of the 1959 Le Mans pit stands honoring their 1959 win with Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvatore and teammates Sterling Moss, Paul Frere, Jack Fairman, Maurice Trintignant.

In 1991 it honored an individual for the first time: Juan Manual Fangio, 5-time world driving champion, a record lasting for 46 years. Fangio, Jack Brabham, Dan Gurney became a Mount Rushmore of motorsport. Jack Brabham, the only F1 World Champion to drive a car of his own manufacture, and Dan Gurney, the only American to win a Formula One race in a car of his own manufacture.



World class racing at Laguna includes Indy Cars, Can-Am series, GTP sports cars in the 1980s like this Lowenbrau 962. A moving memory for some, a moving museum piece for the younger enthusiast. Still popular on the historic scene, is the Trans-Am series which had all major manufacturers, like the Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger and drivers like Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Mark Donahue, Sam Posey. The same cars returned in the hands of talented gentlemen drivers.

The popularity of Monterey Car Week has various factions trying to claim the title, from the common Monterey Car Week, to Pebble Beach calling it Pebble Beach Car Week, and Carmel has adopted Carmel Car Week. Whatever you want to call it, it feels like the week is in transition. An inflection point is the streets of Carmel had cars returning following the abrupt end of Concours-on-the-Avenue in 2021. The founder's sudden death in 2021 shocked all.

No doubt the Carmel City Council heard from restaurants and hotels about missing business and so blessed a new local Tuesday "Concours for a Cause" charity event which added music and refreshed atmosphere; Wednesday, Aston Martin's were displayed without much excitement; on Thursday the Ferrari Club filled the streets out with Italia Rosso (why go to Saturday's Concorso Italiano?).

Events like Exotics on Broadway is bringing the younger SuperCar fans out, Sunday's Pebble Concours is the anchor of it all yet Friday's The Quail is drawing ever increasing prestige from manufacturers with special models and displays. Excitement for the week is not only the car shows and concours but the auctions giving the week its high-roller image. This year, buyers' euphoria of a few years back diminished a bit. RMSotheby's had the glossiest presentations of star cars, Bonham's was a disappointment.

Finally, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance's same sameness repeated its false airs of sophistication with English-accented hosts, overdone stuffiness, but had a surprise Best-of-Show winner. The weekend is interesting for the first-time visitor, but the ever increasing costs of entry and hotels, traffic (it is becoming the Concours d'Congested) can make it a trying experience for the regulars.

1st Place: “Racing Roxy the T Rex”, Matvey Pulako 12th Grade , Michigan

2nd Place: “Desert Dream Machine” Harmon Joel Laatsch, 11th Grade, Germany

3rd Place: “Red” Fatemah Alloo, 10th Grade, New York

Bill Neale Automotive Fine Art Award for High School Students

The Bill Neale Automotive Fine Art Award For High School Students honors the world-renowned talent and legacy of automotive icon Bill Neale. The Dallas-based artist passed away in January 2021 at the age of 95. Neale was a founding member of the Automotive Fine Arts Society and is listed in the Texas Advertising Hall of Fame and Texas Auto Racing Hall of Fame.

High school entrants are asked to create a signed piece of artwork that incorporates two main design elements often featured in Bill Neale’s work, using racing car of the entrant’s choice as subject matter.

Theme #1: Use of Negative Space

Theme #2: People (depicted with a race car)

Original, signed artwork should incorporate a race car and one of these two elements, or both. The award recognizes Neale’s use of watercolor, acrylic, and oil Fine Art mediums and these are the only accepted mediums.

No digitally created artwork using software is accepted. For entry information, go to https://billnealeaward.org/