As our friend Simon Kidston put it so rightfully, if there is one event that all car enthusiasts and petrolhead await all year long, if not lifelong, it is the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. More than that, it is the whole Monterey Car Week and its pack of automotive events that make us live the dream for 6 days in some paradisiac seafront shores of Northern California during the month of August. I’ve waited 25 years, a whole quarter century before I finally decided to go to my first Car Week. And what a Car Week it was, with great friends, back in 2015.
There’s no two similar Car Week. Every year, there are so many different cars. I mean so many historically “you’re gonna see them only once in a lifetime” cars, you have to be there. It killed me when both in 2016 and 2017 I was not able to go there, and since then I have always made tremendous sacrifices to ensure I would always go to the Car Week and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. And now, thanks to the Coronavirus situation, the Pebble Beach Concours has been cancelled. Text: Mickael B. © Photos: Mickael B. ©
Pebble Beach is the whole purpose of the Car Week
There’s nothing, NOTHING, apart personal matters, which could have made 2020 worse than this. The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is not only the culmination and last event on the Car week. It’s the whole purpose of the Car Week. With Pebble Beach Concours cancelled, there is no Car week. So, of course, now all the events are getting cancelled: Legends of the Autobahn, McCall Motorworks Revival, the Quail, etc.
My thoughts go to Gordon and Molly McCall, who created and organize with tremendous passion and enthusiasm the namesake event, year after year. I cannot imagine all the work you have done and all the efforts you have put for this year’s event, which have been loosely compromised by the Coronavirus. If you are reading this, and need our support, we will be there. You are the ones who lit up the spark of Bertrand, Romain and myself to come to the Car week, and for this, I will ever be grateful.
I hope the Car Week wise and shine from a glory never seen in 2021
I remember, beginning of 2020 how I was planning this year to be even better than 2019. All the travel plans. All the fun. Well… F*** it. I remember making all the arrangements with Hugo, the crazy friend who decided to follow me on the 4 day Car week in 2018 and decided to go for a second round in 2019 just to be sure it was not a dream. All this for nothing. I wish we could put this Coronavirus – or whoever created it – on trial, for all its guilty charges. For all the pain, the suffering, we all are going through and we will have to deal with for the next few years.
F***. I hope good things will come out of this. That the Car Week will rise and shine from a glory never seen in 2021. That all of you, dedicated people who made us live in a dream, year after year, will be rewarded just as much as the people saving our lives right now in the hospitals. If you were not saving me physically, at least mentally you were the whole sunshine of my year, and 2020 looks like a bad rainy groundhog day that’s repeating too much. Pebble Beach Concours Cancelled. What a sh**!
For more memories of Pebble Beach Concours and other Car Week events, hit the links below:
https://a-e.li/reports/pebbletour2015/
