There are always at least a few Shelby Cobras at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Monterey Motorsports Reunion, mixing it up with Shelby Mustangs and Corvettes, but for 2012 there will be quite a few more. Laguna Seca has announced that the Cobra has been selected as the featured vehicle for 2012 in honor of the car’s 50th anniversary.

Like with the Ferrari 250 GTO that celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, it’s likely that many of the other events during the Monterey Car Week will be honoring the Shelby Cobra as well. We wouldn’t be surprised if the Cobra was also honored at the Quail Motorsports Gathering or given a separate class at Pebble Beach. Either way, if you’re a Shelby or a Cobra fan, start making plans to be in Monterey next August.

You can read more about the announcement in the press release after the jump, or get a taste of what’s coming next year with our gallery of Cobra photos above.

Continue reading 2012 Monterey Motorsports Reunion to feature 50th anniversary of the Shelby Cobra

2012 Monterey Motorsports Reunion to feature 50th anniversary of the Shelby Cobra originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s difficult to choose where to be on Friday during the Monterey Car Week. Various car shows vie for our attention, including the Quail Motorsports Gathering, Concorso Italiano and Legends of the Autobahn. Deciding where to spend our time on Saturday, however, is easy. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is the place to be, with the Monterey Motorsports Reunion hosting hundreds of vintage race cars at the famous 2.24 mile racetrack.

Jaguar was this year’s featured marque, highlighting the 50th anniversary of the E-Type. We generally think of the famous Jag as a beautiful road car, but it was a fierce competitor on track as well. An entire race category was dedicated to the E-Type, which made for an incredible sight.

Of course, not all of the race groups were Jaguars, and some of our favorite regulars were back at the track for another year. We always enjoy seeing the Shelby Mustangs and Cobras battle it out with the Corvettes, the IMSA racers, and of course the ever-competitive Trans-Am cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We only wish we could stay at the track all weekend to see every race.

Couldn’t make it out to Laguna Seca for the Motorsports Reunion? No worries, we’ve got you covered. Just browse through our high-res photos in the gallery above.

2011 Monterey Motorsports Reunion originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Drew Phillips and I were looking over the RM docket for tonight’s auction and realized something: There are going to be more m+ vehicles going up on the block tonight than any other night we can remember. Among the highlights include 300 SL coupes, Daytona Spiders, a Ferrari 750 Monza and one magical Mercedes-Benz 540 K Spezial Roadsterthat’s sure to hit upwards of ,000,000.

We’ll be live-blogging it all after the jump, and just as an explainer: all prices listed include a 10 percent commission for the auction house, so if something – say, the 300SL above – hammers at 0,000, the final price would be 6,000. We’ll just be listing the gavel price. And with that, let’s get to it.

Continue reading 2011 RM Auctions in Monterey – LIVE BLOG

2011 RM Auctions in Monterey – LIVE BLOG originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At yesterday’s Legends of the Autobahn event, BMW – easily the largest marque represented on the lawn – rolled out the 328 Hommage for its first appearance on North American soil.

Built to celebrate the original 328′s 75th birthday, the Hommage concept is both an advanced styling exercise and four-wheeled exploration of lightweight materials. Like its great, great grandfather, which was composed primarily of aluminum and magnesium, the Hommage is an incredibly svelte roadster, coming in at 1,720 pounds thanks to its carbon fiber body, passenger tub and wheels. Appropriately and predictably, power is provided by a 3.0-liter inline-six of undisclosed output, while a single set of gauges and a pair of contoured leather buckets make up the spartan interior.

When the concept debuted earlier this year, we weren’t particularly smitten with the Hommage’s styling, but in person (and alongside the 328s of yore), it’s a thing to behold. The crossed-out headlamps and leather hood ties smack of nostalgia-infused kitsch, but the silver carbon fiber wheels, exposed weave, double bump rump and – yes – even the elongated kidney grilles give it a presence that’s both menacing and sophisticated. Judge for yourself in the gallery of live pics above.

BMW 328 Hommage Concept touches down in Monterey originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are no less than five auctions slated for this week in Monterey, with literally hundreds of collectable cars up for sale. Bonhams, Gooding & Company, Mecum, RM and Russo and Steele have all been consigning cars for the past several months to try and lure in the thousands of automotive enthusiasts that gather in the Monterey peninsula every August.

It can be hard to fathom the amount and value of cars actually being auctioned off in Monterey, so to put things into perspective, collector car insurance company Hagerty has compiled the estimated net worth of every car being offered up in Monterey later this week. The total? An incredible 0 million.

A few of the highlights that will add to that total include a 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza (pictured above) expected to sell for around million, a pair of ex-Steve McQueen cars and the 1957 Ferrari 250 TR Prototype that could very well break the overall record price of a car sold at auction.

Check back later this week for highlights of the auctions, as well as the rest of our Monterey coverage.

Monterey car auctions to gross estimated 0 million in sales originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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