I wasn't at Monterey Car Week.
But I may as well have been, considering the amount of posts, videos, walkarounds, reveals and photographs I've scrolled through over the last few days! Honestly, car spotting during Monterey feels a lot like scrolling through the Met Gala the morning after.
So, here's my very subjective list of what I loved, was okay with, and just didn't impress me.
What I loved.
Spyker C8 Preliator XXV. The comeback.
Honestly, I think everyone had forgotten about them. So, seeing them come back at Monterey with this was quite something.
That beautiful green, those rose-gold accents, the aviation-inspired details, and the sheer amount of drama packed into one car! It felt like a perfect example of a comeback car and the impact it needs to have to make the comeback worthy!
Chef's kiss.
Koenigsegg CCGT1 . Because, of course, Koenigsegg.
Koenigsegg doing what Koenigsegg does best. Making engineering sexy again.
The original CCGT was developed as a racing car but never got to race. Now Koenigsegg has modernised the idea and brought it back in the form of the CCGT1.
And then, normal carbon fibre? Boring. White carbon fibre? Yes, please! Because apparently resurrecting an old racing project wasn't enough, they brought out Ghost Fibre (Because it is more than just white coloured carbon. It is a proprietary crystal-white fibre and carbon matrix).
Oh, and how can you not appreciate the gearbox mastery? Cheekily labelled ASMR, for Auto, Sequential, Manual, and Reverse, from a nine-speed Light Speed Transmission. Absolute brilliance.
This is exactly the kind of fun engineering madness I expect from Koenigsegg.
I love it.
Aston Martin Valen. Perfect example of how to evolve Elegance.
This one got me for a completely different reason.
Aston Martin managed to take what we already know as an Aston and push it somewhere new without losing the elegance.
The fins underneath the doors, the new slimmer lighting, cleaner sharper design, and even moving away from the familiar Aston Martin rear-light treatment.
Mind you, with all this evolution, it still unmistakably feels like an Aston Martin.
Engineering and elegance in the same sentence.
BRABUS BODO. OEM+ and then some.
I had seen the BODO before Monterey. But seeing it again reminded me exactly why I liked it.
BRABUS spent years perfecting the whole OEM+ status where they took an existing car and made it more aggressive, more luxurious, more BRABUS.
Then they basically went:
“What if we just built the whole thing?”
And somehow, it works. It looks like everything BRABUS has ever done, but also like nothing they have done before. Oh, they showcased the Cabriolet version too, and my god imagine the symphony when the roof is down on that beast!
The car looks as powerful as their name sounds.
Perfect match!
Ferrari 250 GTO Bianco Speciale. Needs any introduction?
Sometimes you don't need an explanation. You just need to look at the car.
Ferrari Collector David Lee's white 250 GTO was that car for me.
A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. Chassis 3729GT. The only 250 GTO delivered from the factory in white. Lee bought it for $38.5 million earlier this year.
And honestly?
Just look at it.
What I was just okay with.
Gordon Murray S1. Heavy on the Déjà vu, mid on the fun.
Okay, I get it. Gordon Murray wanted to make another lightweight, driver-focused, naturally aspirated, manual supercar.
I love that philosophy. But... Have we not seen this car before?
The S1 is heavily inspired by the McLaren F1, which Murray himself originally designed, and I could not quite shake the feeling that I was looking at the F1 in another body. I almost felt bad thinking that.
Because the engineering is fascinating. The philosophy is exactly the kind of thing I want more of. But the resemblance was just too hard to unsee.
Maybe too much love for F1 is holding me back?
What just didn't impress me.
McLaren McL 6GT. I understand it. I just don't recognise it.
I completely understand what McLaren is trying to do here. Honour Bruce McLaren. Revisit the M6GT. Finally turn the production road-car dream he never got to realise into a modern McLaren.
I get all of that.
But I could not shake the feeling that McLaren is trying to walk in Ferrari's footsteps here. Hear me out for a second before you bash me!
Look at Ferrari's Icona series. Those cars can be wildly different from Ferrari's regular cars, but they still look like Ferraris.
The lights, proportions, shapes and details either trickle from the road cars or, in some cases, eventually trickle back into them. There is a visual familiarity.
That's where the McL GT, for me, did not cut it. It feels so starkly different that, honestly... Put another badge on the front and I could probably believe it belonged to another manufacturer.
And for something that is trying to become an icon?
That's a problem.
Bugatti Destrier. Sorry, Bugatti, you had a better option.
I know what it is and what it represents. I know it's Bugatti taking the Bolide's philosophy and translating it into something road-going. I can see why people like it.
It just doesn't do it for me.
I actually think the Tourbillon looks better. And when Bugatti already has that V16 masterpiece in its stable, I found myself wondering why this was the one I was looking at during Monterey.
Maybe I am missing something or it is just not my cup of tea.
But it was fun seeing the beef getting squashed between Rimac, Matt Armstrong, and Alex G!
So there it is. That's my Monterey scroll-through.
Eight cars. Out of which, five that genuinely moved me, one that gave me serious déjà vu, and two that, despite understanding what the designers were trying to do, just did not impress me.