Here’s the thing about Monterey Car Week: one doesn’t call the supercars on display supercars. They are exotics. Full stop. One must say this with an even balance of reverence and familiarity, along with a not-so-subtle dose of lascivious interest.
Exxxotics, you whisper, purring the three syllables in dulcet tones to your fellow enthusiasts as you ogle and snap photos. You refer to the exotics by model. Revuelto. Tourbillon. Purosangue. You speak these colorful names like that of a stripper whose Christian name you don’t know but whose feelings — of this you are certain — must be mutual.
Exxxotics. The word serves as a lingua franca among the distressed designer jean community who probably paid for their previous Lambo with crypto before the market went belly up. Men who enjoy Italian leather. Carbon fiber. Scissor doors and, presumably, the entire catalog of LMFAO. Men who hail from Miami, Los Angeles, Dubai.
Exxxotics, they say, with trepidatious eye contact and a careful nod, like rendezvousing spies from rival countries spilling the code word that will allow them to work together. Or at least like grown men who have only previously interacted via subreddits.
Unfortunately, I did not learn the plural use of the word exotic until my penultimate night on the Monterey Peninsula — a hard-to-get-to spit of land I’d reached thanks to my hosts, the on-demand private airline Wheels Up. Getting to far-flung enclaves of the elite is their speciality.
As for my transportation on this particular night, it was a Bentley Bentayga, its 640-hp twin-turbo V8 growling as we zoomed along the type of coast that would make Hitchcock swoon. A pair of private equity bros in town from Texas had been kind enough to give me a ride. We had just left an afterparty hosted by, you guessed it, Bentley. We were en route to the Inn at Spanish Bay, or more specifically the fire pits dotting its back patio, where many exotics enthusiasts congregate to close out each night.
The two Texans spoke of double wishbones, torque vectoring, flat-plane cranks, wet-sump lubes, and I nodded and agreed and said “of course,” lest they spot me for the rube that I am. I resisted the ever-constant urge to ask how fast the cars in question go, which is the only supercar — excuse me, exotic — stat that I care about. When not discussing the aforementioned technical specs of each exotic, the two Texans discussed Supercar Blondie. At first, I mistook this for the name of yet another anthropomorphized car model with a sexy silhouette. But alas, Supercar Blondie is an actual person, insofar as influencers can be actual people. The Texans lamented the fact that they’d been unable to meet Supercar Blondie at the Bentley party earlier that evening. They could hardly be faulted; after all, Supercar Blondie has 17 million Instagram followers. But when we lurched by her while pulling out past the Pebble Beach clubhouse — the nexus point of virtually all Monterey Car Week festivities — the Texans both quickly demurred, agreeing that now sadly wasn’t the time to roll down the window to say hi. Perhaps they’d spot her later at the fire pits.
Influencers were the name of the game all week. While there were bona fide celebs in attendance, from Adam Carolla to James Marsden to a rumored Richard Branson (who was said to be seen cutting the rug at the Bentley villa), it was social-media natives who drew the real crowds. A blinged out Justin Case had flown private from Miami. We spotted Daniel Mac — the original “what do you do for a living?” guy — at the virtually impenetrable Lamborghini villa, posing in a baggy Balenciaga fit for pictures with fans, all of whom seemed to be dads in attendance with (and attired exactly the same as) their children. Mac also interviewed Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann. The silvery 61-year-old proved another top draw all week, as did the world premiere of Lamborghini’s latest exotic: the Revuelto Super Veloce V12. The fully specced build will go for more than $1 million.
What started as a 13-car auto show 75 years ago is now big business. Ten days. Some 2,000 exotics. More than 100,000 attendees. A cool $130 million pumped into the local economy. You get the picture. So do car brands. This year’s Monterey saw activations all week long, from new car launches to the RM Sotheby’s auction of Ferrari’s first production unit of their Luce, the Italian brand’s infamous, Jony Ive-designed EV. The highly criticized whip went for a record-breaking $40 million — the highest price ever fetched for an EV. While proceeds went to charity, many in attendance remained skeptical, believing the bidding to be the work of Ferrari to pump up demand (in actuality, the car was purchased by 87-year-old billionaire Dr. Herbert “Herbie” Wertheim).
Of all the events taking place in Monterey, Friday’s and Sunday’s are the most important. The Quail kicks off the long weekend at a country club of the same name. It is luxurious and corporate. Think: exotics galore; lavish brand activations with dubious ROI; five food tents, each one serving cuisine from a different Peninsula Hotel, the event’s sponsor. Engines roared, the fine smell of Cohiba smoke wafted over the manicured greens, a fleet of fighter jets saluted us all from above as Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” pumped out of deafening speakers. Here the fits were better, or at least more contemporary, their tailoring more relaxed. Kith. Bode. ALD. Plenty of gold chains, fitted baseball caps. Older guys wore suits. Everyone ponied up $3,800 to be there. Everyone, at least those to whom I spoke, had flown in private.
Of course all this was a mere appetizer to Sunday’s Concours d’Elegance. The week’s OG event remains its main spectacle. Rare antique Ferraris and Bugattis and something that looked like an art deco PT Cruiser fanned out along Pebble Beach’s famous 18th fairway, green as a billiards table. There were 41 Lamborghini Miuras — the original exotic! — in a rainbow of colors and all parked in a cultish circle. Tickets were only $640, but the crowd made up for this paltry price with their attire. Men wore seersucker, women fascinators. One could easily think they were at the Kentucky Derby. In the distance, fog filled Stillwater Cove. Waves crashed along the rocky shoreline at the far side of 17-Mile Drive. A humpback breached the Pacific’s surface. It was a scene that might’ve come off as pornographic if it hadn’t been so darn enchanting.
In the end, a 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster won “Best of Show.” It’s a beast of a car that looks like it might’ve once belonged to the Addams Family, but in reality it was Clark Gable’s back in the day. I took this all in from Wheels Up’s sumptuous hospitality suite. We drank Bloody Marys with a hell of a kick. Customers talked shop, considered upping their yearly PJ budget. The Duesenberg drove up the small hill toward the clubhouse. Confetti flew. Sparklers exploded. It was a scene so timeless and glamorous and otherworldly that it might as well have been conjured by F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. I wondered if Supercar Blondie felt the same.
We walked for what felt like miles to meet our Uber. Tents were already being dismantled. Hordes of people marched toward public transit. It was a nightmare. All weekend, getting anywhere on this dramatic spit of land had been next to impossible. It gets worse every year, I was told. The booming sounds of departing V8s and V12s echoed in the distance. It made one yearn for a private jet, or at the very least a Bentley. Instead, there was our Uber. Beneath us, the road was windy and wonderful. Mist billowed through the pines and cypress trees. Evening set in.
It was all, in a word, exotic.
Meet your guide
