San Marino Motor Classic Brings Pebble Beach Show to Greater LA

It’s seems like it’s been around forever, but the expansive and inclusive San Marino Motor Classic only celebrated its 13th year with last Sunday’s show. And things seem to be getting better every year.

“Everything is going swimmingly well,” said event chairman Aaron Weiss who, three years ago at the 10th-anniversary Motor Classic, said he thought they’d finally figured out how to do this whole car show thing.

This year there were 330 cars, at least a dozen of which came straight down from the lawn at Pebble, among an impressive variety of beautiful cars.

“Well, we got lucky, and that’s what it is,” said Weiss. “We’re the week after Pebble Beach so a lot of guys bring their cars down and that gets us those cars you’re referring to. And I think over time the show has developed a certain reputation and people bring their cars.”

Is that dozen cars just from the Pebble Beach Concours, or are there cars from the Quail, Concorso Italiano, and other Monterey events?

“Just Pebble Beach. There are cars from other events of the Monterey Car Week, but I don’t know how many of those are here.”

So the idea of moving San Marino to the week after Pebble is having the desired effect.

“To have it the week after Pebble, absolutely. You would never get somebody from the East Coast to spend the money to come twice across the country. So it works out really well.”

While Pebble Beach cars are an intriguing draw, the San Marino Motor Classic is all-inclusive. There are muscle cars, Porsche 911s, English and British sports cars, cool Italians, and even a few Brass Era entries.

There might have been even more cars this year, but the Ferrari Club had moved its judged competition from San Marino, where it was in recent years because it had become difficult to stage the event on Colorado Boulevard in nearby Pasadena’s Old Town.

Those challenges were overcome this year and the Ferrari Club was able to move their judged show back to Pasadena. Therefore, there weren’t as many Ferraris on hand this year. That meant about 25% fewer cars overall at San Marino.

“They wanted to have their event on Colorado Boulevard, as they had for years,” said Weiss without elaboration.

That didn’t mean there were no Ferrari Club Ferraris at San Marino.

“We had 25 cars (at the San Marino Motor Classic this year) and judging for pre-1980 cars,” said Jim Bindman, President of the Ferrari Club of America Southwest Region.

“We just didn’t have our huge judged show because we are doing that on Colorado Boulevard now. (Club member) Rick Principe won Best in Show in his 275 GTS.”

Principe’s car was Best in Show in the Post-War category. Best in Show Pre-War went to the Petersen Museum’s Delahaye Type 135 Figoni & Falaschi Cabriolet, which was a gift from the Mullin Collection after Peter Mullin passed away. Both cars were things of beauty.

As were almost all the cars on the lawn. Click on the gallery to see 50 of our favorites.

And next year, if you decide you can’t justify the $300 it costs to get into Pebble, or the $600 for the Quail (or $675 for Motorlux!), just wait a week and fork over $45 to get into the San Marino Motor Classic. In addition to all those classic beauties, they have a Zimmer.

See you next year.