| Ahoy from Monterey Car Week, a car lover’s nirvana, where the only things louder than the combustion engines rumbling in the cool morning fog are the blazers on some of the gentlemen on the lawn of the Quail, A Motorsports Gathering. It’s Hannah Elliott, and I’ve been on California’s central coast since Wednesday, interviewing car executives and eating my way through the Italian restaurants of Carmel. (Go to Casanova.) Oh, and driving. Lots of driving. Thursday I drove the honorary lead car in the Tour d’Elegance, the 63-mile journey every vehicle entered in the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance must pass to prove its road-worthiness. And I drove the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 APXGP Edition, a special coupe created for Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer’s blockbuster F1 film starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. I’m told there are still a few more available of the 52 to be made. (Pricing has yet to be announced.)  A 1977 Chevrolet IROC Camaro was one of the classic standouts on view at the Quail this year. Photographer: Hannah Elliott/Bloomberg Tomorrow is the Pebble Beach Concours itself, the climax of the week that attracts thousands of collectors, enthusiasts, investors and executives for five days of networking through the guise of ogling, driving, comparing, buying and selling expensive vehicles, both old and new. Just the eight generations of Rolls-Royce Phantoms parked on the lawn of the Pebble Beach Golf Club alone were enough to thrill my little Spirit of Ecstasy heart. It’s been 100 years since these titans of the car world first appeared, and Chief Executive Officer Chris Brownridge thought it would be a good idea to show them off a bit. (When it first premiered in 1925, a Rolls-Royce Phantom chassis cost £1,900, or about $34,901 today; the body was sold separately. Now it costs a half-million dollars, or more.)  Brownridge with a century’s worth of the Rolls-Royce Phantoms. Source: Rolls-Royce The classics are the undisputed stars of the week. But it’s also true that the debuts of the modern cars are growing ever more prolific. This year, even some mass brands not typically seen at this exclusive gathering, including Cadillac and Chevrolet, brought their latest creations to this now de facto auto show. They came with a specific goal: to access the vibrant, affluent and devoted type of people who will pay handsomely for tickets to attend the festivities. Tickets to the Quail, which cost $1,596 for general admission, sold out quickly; on Tuesday, they had been going for more than twice that on StubHub. “We like the spirit of Monterey Car Week,” says Bryan Nesbitt, the executive design director at Cadillac. “Particularly the Quail. It’s a unique customer base, and it’s certainly customers we are interested in talking to.” Here’s a quick sliver of a rundown of what I saw during this celebration of all things automotive, both at the Quail and at private premiere parties and previews in and around Carmel. And that doesn’t even include the classics. Bugatti brought the stunning W-16 Brouillard, the first one-off from its new Programme Solitaire, which offers customers the opportunity to commission unique coach-built vehicles. “I want to make Bugatti into the most successful, most profitable car company in the world,” Mate Rimac told me Friday on my Hot Pursuit! podcast. The CEO of the Rimac Group is well on his way. The waiting list for the sold-out $4.1 million Tourbillon is at least 60 people deeper than the limited-to-250-production run.  The Bugatti Brouillard is named after Ettore Bugatti’s favorite horse. The color is meant to resemble the hue of a famous statue of that particular thoroughbred. Source: Bugatti Bentley showed the convertible version of its $2.1 million Batur and a cool new paint finish for its highest specified cars, called Ombre by Mulliner. BMW premiered the limited-edition M2 CS sports car at a reception at a private home; McLaren showed a variety of things for the first time in the Americas, including its recently announced 2027 WEC hypercar, the limited-to-50 750S Le Mans, and the McLaren W1, the new hypercar designed as the successor to the McLaren F1 and P1. Infiniti showed its QX65 Monograph concept–easily identifiable with its fastback roofline–plus two additional variations of the all-new QX80 flagship SUV, the QX80 Track Spec and QX80 Terrain Spec.  Cadillac’s Elevated Velocity concept showcases the potential for cars to include things such as seatback-mounted infrared lighting and red ambient lighting, which could aid relaxation and recovery after physical exertion, like a workout. Source: Cadillac There were plenty of electric vehicles. Some were still in concept form, including the Corvette CX, that indicate the future of America’s longest-running sports car. Others, such as the one-off Rivian R1S Quad Pebble Beach Edition, with a truly elegant interior of sustainable woods and other natural textiles, were variants of vehicles already on sale. Mercedes-Benz showed its 1,300-horsepower AMG GT XX concept at a massive bash Friday night. Acura unveiled the RSX Prototype, an electric SUV set to arrive at dealers in the second half of 2026. Lucid had a new Gravity X concept EV based on the Gravity SUV. Jaguar Land Rover needed to do something big and bold, managing director Rawdon Glover told me Friday at the Quail, so it brought the Type 00 that had caused such a fuss in 2024—and is sticking with the design language when it releases the four-door production version late this year. “We’re not for everyone, and that’s the point,” he says. “If we can get 4 out of 10 people to love the design, and be really engaged with it, that’s exactly what we want.”  Rivian R1S Quad Pebble Beach Edition. Source: Rivian Then there were the smaller shops that make different versions of known cars. One example: the Gunther Werks Project F-26, a design inspired by the classic Porsche 935 Slantnose; it will be produced in a limited run of 26 units (with a whopping 1,000 horsepower). Eccentrica showed its Pacchetto Titano, a track-inspired iteration of its €1.35 million ($1.6 million) V-12 Lamborghini Diablo that sharpens chassis response, aerodynamic efficiency and throttle response.  Gunther Werks Project F-26. Source: Gunther Werks Ringbrothers in Wisconsin showed Octavia, which modifies a donor 1971 Aston Martin DBS and is the hot rod brand’s first appearance at Monterey Car Week. Porsche lookalike RUF Automobile of Germany showed the first production RUF Tribute, a sports coupe with an air-cooled 3.6-liter twin-turbo engine embedded in a carbon-fiber chassis, with 550 horsepower. Hennessey in Texas showed the Venom F5 Revolution LF, a new internal-combustion hypercar that gets 2,031 horsepower with an increasingly rare manual transmission. (Yes, you read that right.) And finally, Gordon Murray Automotive has created a new division, Gordon Murray Special Vehicles, that unveiled the GMSV Le Mans GTR, a V-12 engine and manual six-speed transmission supercar inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race (24 will be made); the GMSV S1 LM, a road-legal customer commission, is set to begin deliveries in 2026 (5 will be made). Did you get all that? Whew! It just goes to show what we’ve known for years now: When it comes to news and debuts, the traditional, convention-center automotive show is deader than a doornail. Connect with Hannah via her Instagram and podcast. Once I get my hands on any of the above, you’ll be the first to know. Until then, here’s what else I’ve been driving. | 
