Monterey Car Week: A Celebration Facing Change

By David Arnouts

Monterey Car Week (MCW) is hailed as the pinnacle of automotive enthusiasm, and its elite status both grows and tarnishes. The enthusiasm is now rife with manipulation and opportunism, as faceless private equity groups and unethical dealers hoard stock and skew the market, driving prices up and cars out of reach. The bubble continues to grow, with many waiting (and hoping) for a pop that hasn’t happened.

And despite that, if you get the golden ticket to attend, the magic is indeed real.

From the early morning dew on manicured lawn displays to long group drives through the countryside, Car Week has a way of making the extraordinary feel ordinary — a street-parked Porsche Carrera GT barely gets a glance because a Ferrari 250GTO just rolled by.

Oh look, Jay Leno waved as he drove by in some obscure, priceless relic. It's an automotive fever dream of the best kind.

It has been just over ten years since this author's last attendance, and it still tugs at the heartstrings in a fond nostalgic glow. And while the past is often seen through rose-colored glasses, it sounds like things are indeed changing.

From many first-hand accounts and the meteoric rise of social media coverage, an unfortunate side effect has become apparent. The pursuit of content and viral material is poisoning the once great week and diluting the MCW brand image. 

Videos of blatantly disruptive behavior range from mildly nauseating to unabashedly dangerous. And all for attention. But attention is now forcing crackdowns, more authority involvement and wrecking what was once jovial and pure about of the experience. 

The event has reached oversaturation. Gone are the days when you'd randomly wander the parking lot of your hotel at night and find one of the first US-based -at the time- Rauh Welt Porsche 911s. There were no fanboys with GoPro cameras, ring lights and film crews marching through "for their channels." Nope, just a beautiful purple RWB nestled in for the night between a nondescript Mercedes Benz and a modified first-generation Lamborghini Gallardo coupe.

We automotive enthusiasts love to share our passion, but perhaps our desperation for content and coverage has diluted the experience? Would it be so bad if we went, experienced it and left taking only our pictures and videos just for us and not “our audience?”

It’s a catch-22 because those that can’t go want to see and experience. And those that do go, love to share it. This author included. But perhaps we as enthusiasts could take a page from the National Park Service and lean more towards “Take memories and leave only footprints”.