The 2oth anniversary of this unique automotive event.
The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering 2025
Friday, August 15, 2025
Quail Lodge & Golf Club, Carmel, California
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Car Week in Carmel is full of amazing events and The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering is arguably number 2 or 3 on the list, probably depending if you love racing or not. That being said, there is no event like the The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering.
Celebrating it’s 20th year, I was lucky enough to attend the event held at the Quail Golf Course in Carmel Valley. The groupings of cars are more informal than at Pebble Beach and the classes for the 20th anniversary are as follows:
Pre-War Sports & Racing – Post-War Sports – Post-War Racing – The Evolution of the Supercar – The Great Ferraris – Custom Coachwork – Sports and Racing Motorcycles
There is also some themes that change from year to year. The Featured Themes for 2023 include the 50th Anniversary of the 1973 RS Carrera, Porsche 959s, Early Bentley 1950s R-Type Coupe, and the “Eyes on Italian Design”
There is really something for everyone, but some cars are real standouts, the “Best of Show” went to the magnificent 1956 Ferrari 410 Superamerica “Superfast 1” owned by Anne Brockinton Lee of Nevada. Only two “Superfast” examples were built by Pinin Farina, and this one premiered at the 1956 Paris Salon .
The Spirit of The Quail, 1949 Lancia Aprilla Supergioello, owned by Nigel Churcher – Costa Rica
50th Anniversary of the 1973 RS Carrera was won by the 911 Carrera 2.7 RS Lightweight, owned by Liz & Reid Vann – Missouri
Of the Porsche 959s on display Bruce Canepa from just up the road won with his 1992 Porsche 959SC.
The Porsche 959, built from 1986 to 1993, it is often referred to as the first to the modern Super Car. First introduced for Group B rallies, it morphed into a production vehicle, that albeit was Street legal, it had a very un-legal top speed of 197 mph.
Of course street legal is a bit of a stretch. They initially were not street legal when Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft bought them and they were impounded once landing Stateside. Gates took the government to court and was successful in getting a the “Show or Display” amendment. According to the website “rennlist dot com, this amendment allows low production – less than 500 units – vehicles to be imported into the U.S., even if they aren’t subjected to the requirements typically needed for a vehicle to be sold in America. Previously, the procedure for Porsche to get them certified included provided 4 cars to be crash tested. The cars cost $500,000 when new, so Porsche declined, and it took over a dozen years to beat,or at least daze, the law into an amendment.
The Eyes on Italian Design must have been tough to pick but the 1967 Bizzarrini Strada 5300 of Michael Kerns won.
The Great Ferraris was probably an easy pick as Tom & Gwen Price’s 1958 250 Pontoon Testa Rossa is maybe the most beautiful car ever made.
Other great cars picked were the 1938 Jaguar SS100 of Tom Krefetz winning the Pre-War Sports & Racing Cars, while the Post-War Sports 1945-1960 was won by the “Double Bubble” 1957 Alfa Romeo 1900 CSS Zagato, owned by Ken & Dayle Roath of California.
I arrived on the first bus of journalists from the parking lot down the highway and we were so early the placards describing the cars were not even put out yet. In the back “north” section they was an amazing array of exotic Italian designed cars, and a number of Porche Carrera GT’s in a rainbow of colours other than silver! It was a bit overcast for my first trip around the field, but the skies soon cleared up and a skywriting plane “wrote” a huge “Q” in the sky.
I watched a few unveiling of exotic cars and even took a group photo for the people in charge of the new Meyers Manx and the new electric versions. But I was more in love with seeing the older cars, like the 1917 Locomobile Type M, that was fully restored, while the unrestored 1940 Mercedes Benz-W142-320-Sports-Cabriolet was shown with full patina.
Any day you get to see the early Jags is a good day and the 1938 SS Cars Ltd Jaguar 100 was truly a work of art. The 1957-KurtisKraft 500X El Caballo II was the only American car to enter the Migle Miglia
and was built on a Kurtis X chassis. Powered by a Chrysler Hemi engine, it was clad with an aluminum body built at Sutton’s Body Emporium of Hollywood, California to mimic a European styled racecar. Entering the 1957 Mille Miglia as car 524, it could reach 176 mph, and was feaured on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine..
Cars came from Costa Rica, Hong Kong and even Switzerland and many cars were present that I bet had never been seen by half of the spectators….or VIP’s on hand. Cars like the 1973 Cooper Sport Pack Rover owned by Rowland Cheeks, of California, or the 1968 PinanFarina Fiat Dino Ginevra.
This quirkly little car had a 2 liter Dino engine mounted up front driven through a 5 speed transmission to the rear wheels. It is built by Pininfarina and shown in Rosso Dino at the Geneva Motor Show in 1968. Designed by Paolo Paolo Martin for Pininfarina, it was an evolution of the Fiat Dino Berlinetta Aerodinamica aerodynamic study by Pininfarina that was shown at the Paris Motorshow in 1967. It had more of a Breadvan styling at the Paris Show. This little two seater has headlights that are stationary, but there are flip up covers . PinanFarina owned it till early 90s then sold to an Italian gentleman and then purchased by the current owner.
Sharing the field with the best of the classic cars are many of the major manufacturer’s cars that are almost all Super Cars to one degree or another. There were apparently 17 new model reveals including, Bugatti, Czinger Lamborghini, McLaren, Pininfarina, and Rolls-Royce. Of all the craziness in the super car world Bugatti showed a Chiron Super Sport “Golden Era”, with hand-done sketches, drawn on the car by Molsheim’s team of designers,. The drivers side shows the modern story of Bugatti while the passenger side shows the History.
As is tradition, racecars from the nearby Weathertech Raceway Lagna Seca drive in and are prominently displayed during mid day. Dave MacDonald was the first to win in Carroll Shelby’s new AC Cobra and a recreation of the racecar he had before the Cobra. It was driven in by it’s present builder and owner Ernie Nagamatsu. The Corvette with an elongated front, was driven with great success by MacDonald before his Cobra days. The car was finished in time for Dave’s son Rich to see it unveiled at the History races in Seattle, shortly before Rich was taken from us after a long battle with Cancer.
The line of Formula one cars was beside the racecars and on the other side of the road was a field of dreams….technically Ferraris, but to me the same thing. There was a well used Enzo, a low mile F50, a menacing 512 Boxer , a Pontoon fender 250 Testa Rossa, Yellow Red Daytona, 250 MM, and many other of Enzo’s finest.
One thing that really stood out was the rarity of seeing a real Carrera RS 2.7, which is not often, but to arrive at the Quail and see a row oof them in a number of colours…..is just, well…The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering.
