Editor’s note: Follow all of the action and updates on our special Monterey Car Week page.
Need a break from the shows and sales during Monterey Car Week, or perhaps your interest in collector vehicles is more academic than mechanical? Well, there’s a place for you, too, on the Monterey Peninsula. It’s called the Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum, and it offers three days of seminars and interview sessions at The Inn at Spanish Bay.
With support from AIG and BridgePoint, the presentations are both educational and entertaining, including comedians — Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno — and a wide range of experts in between.
Sessions begin on Thursday, August 23, with acclaimed automotive photographer Michael Furman sharing “A Career with Cars and Cameras” at 1 p.m., followed at 3 p.m. by “The Truth About Tucker” with Ken Gross as moderator of a panel that includes John Tucker Jr. (grandson of Preston), Rob Ida (Tucker restoration specialist), Steve Tremulis (nephew of Tucker designer Alex Tremulis), Mark Lieberman (who has owned five Tuckers), and Hampton Wayt (Tucker design expert and archives specialist).
Sessions start at 9 a.m. on Friday, August 24, with “Estate Planners Perspective: Top Mistakes with High-end Collections,” by Eric Ess, chair of Husch Blackwell’s Private Wealth Advisory Group.
At 11 a.m., the topic is “Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and Spike Ferensten, who wrote for the TV series Seinfeld and Late Show with David Letterman.
At 2 p.m., Alfieri Maserati, historian Adolfo Orsi, authors Michale Lynch and Bob Devlin are on a panel moderated by Tim Considine to examine “The Racing legacy of OSCA-Fratelli Maserati.” Considine was a childhood actor who at the age of 17 purchased a 1500cc OSCA MT4.
At 3:30 p.m. “Collecting Everything but Cars” is the topic for a panel featuring Jacques Vaucher of L’art et I’automobile, Jerry LeBant of Liverpool Motorworks, Ben Horton of Hortons Books, David Kayser of Chelsea Motoring Literature and Rory Brinkman, automobilia specialist for Barrett-Jackson, and moderated by Jerry Lettieri of Automobilia Auctions.
The program Friday concludes at 5 p.m. with “Big in Japan: Future Collectibles from the Model A to the 240Z,” with long-time Mazda designer-turned-design instructor Tom Matano; Nissan senior vice president for design Alfonso Albaisa; Fast and Furious actor RJ de Vra and Eric Bizek of Motor Trend’s JDM Legends, with magazine editor Ed Loh as moderator.
Saturday at 10:30 a.m., Jay Leno and Donald Osborne discuss “Pioneers, Breakthroughs & Dead End Technology and the Development of the Automobile.”
At 1:30 p.m., Spike Feresten is back for “Spike’s Car Radio Records Live with Michael Strahan,” and, yes, as in Michael Strahan the pro football star turned television personality.
The forum finishes at 3 p.m. with “Car Guys in TV” with Wayne Carini moderating a panel including Jay Ward of Pixar Animation Studios, Mike Brewer of Wheeler Dealers, former NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham and Bob Scanlon, president of the Velocity channel.
For more information, including details about Pebble Beach RetroAuto, the marketplace for automobilia, art, books, and “the automotive lifestyle” events also based at The Inn at Spanish Bay, visit the Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum website.
