The Pebble Beach Concours might be the centrepiece event of Monterey Car Week, but as this rarefied bubble of auto-erotic fascination garners more and more media attention, it’s become a top spot to launch a new luxury or sports car to the world – right under the noses of those most likely to open their wallets and buy one. Pebble Beach is a place where the cars on show have more affinity with yachts and houses, or Picassos and Warhols, rather than just mere modes of transportation.
With lawns and greens awash with expensive metal from all eras, and linen-clad billionaires strolling in amongst the shiny bodywork, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was simply a playground for the ultra-elite. On one level, you’d be right, but with the traditional motor show deemed practically DOA, everyone from BMW to JLR to Cadillac, Maserati, Mercedes-Maybach and more, chose the most prestigious date in Californian car culture to make some global debuts.
Appropriately, much of what was revealed here sat in the hypercar category, an eco-system driven by highly inflated power outputs and price tags. There were other gems on show as well. Here's our round-up of what was revealed at Monterey in 2024.
Range Rover SV Carmel Edition
Range Rover cut straight to the quick with their Carmel Edition of the Range Rover SV. With an interior colour scheme taken straight from the landscape and seascape of the West Coast, the car has been fitted out by the company’s SV Bespoke division. The interior features Sequoia Green and Perlino Leather, while the bodywork is resplendent in a special Satin Green finish.
There’s 24-carat gold details on the badging, as well as vast 23” Dark Grey wheels. Range Rover hopes to sell just 17 examples of this addition, and each will include a donation to the local Del Monte Forest Conservancy organisation.
Range Rover SV Carmel Edition, $370,000, LandRoverUSA.com
Cadillac Opulent Velocity Concept
Cadillac’s newest EV concept is the Opulent Velocity, an elaborate name for a what the company is calling the ‘future of all-electric luxury performance’. A 2+2 coupe with dramatic butterfly doors, the design is a preview of future sporting Cadillac V-Series cars. In recent years the American luxury manufacturer has gone all-out on catering to a high-end, demanding clientele, offering bespoke experiences and one-on-one customer interaction.
Opulent Velocity certainly evokes the sheer scale of the glory days of the 50s and 60s, with a vast interior that includes a rear banquette and smooth, uncluttered surfaces inside and out. In addition to its sporting pretensions, this is a concept study that prioritises the autonomous driving experience, with augmented reality head-up displays, and immersive sound and light experiences for the passengers.
Rimac Nevera R
Croatian supercar maker Rimac had a big presence at Pebble Beach, off the back of their introduction of the newest version of their Nevera family, the Nevera R. This is the third iteration of an all-electric hypercar that revolutionised the idea of zero emission performance when it first surfaced back in 2013 as the Rimac Concept One.
The Nevera, which shares a platform with Automobili Pininfarina’s Battista, has proved to be one of the most enduring and credible of all electric sports cars and the new R variant turns up the style and performance. The former includes a new aero package and wheels, as well as a power bump to over 2,100 horsepower. That’s enough to catapult this carbon fibre machine to 300km/h (186mph) in just over 8.6 seconds, on to a top speed of 412km/h (256mph), as long as you have, according to the small print, ‘manufacturer oversight’.
You’d have though that this set of headline figures would be enough to bury the tedious rounds of hypercar bragging rights and parked up Neveras certainly garnered a lot of attention during the weekend. However, the relentless sound of revving engines that echoes around Monterey during the Car Week implies that EVs still have a long way to go before they usurp traditional power sources as a means of showing off.
Rimac-Automobili.com, @Rimac_Automobili
355 by Evoluto Automobili
Touring Superleggera’s Veloce12 wasn’t the only Ferrari restomod to make its debut at Monterey Car Week. Evoluto Automobili showcased its 355 by Evoluto, which, as the name suggests, is a re-engineered and overhauled Ferrari 355, the company’s mid-engine flagship from 1995 to 1999.
This particular ‘remastering’ effort remains faithful to the original Pininfarina bodywork and focuses instead on power output, reliability and drivability. Describing the car as representation of ‘peak analogue’ automotive design, the V8 powered 355 gets a power hike, carbon fibre panels for weight saving with interior and exterior fettling by the UK's Callum design consultancy.
EvolutoAutomobili.com, @Evoluto_Automobili
Kalmar Automotive 9X9
Tweaked and revisited Ferraris were almost as common as Porsche-style revivals. One of the most successful was the 9X9 by Danish builder Kalmar Automotive. The catalyst here is Porsche’s iconic 959 supercar, one of the first and greatest of the 80s-era high-tech homologation specials.
Shown at The Quail, the slightly edgier, motorsports-themed event that runs alongside the Pebble Beach proper, the 9X9 evokes the original’s flattened, elongated 911 vibe, complete with all-wheel drive and 930 horsepower (substantially more than was available back in the mid-80s). The interior is analogue and deliberately lo-fi, and there are set to be three versions, the 9X9, 9X9 Sport and 9X9 Leichtbau, the latter being the most pared-back and driver focused of the three.
KalmarAutomotive.com, @KalmarAutomotive
Rolls-Royce Phantom Scintilla Collection
Rolls-Royce chose Monterey Car Week to unveil the Phantom Scintilla Private Collection, a set of ten (pre-sold) cars based on the Phantom Extended Wheelbase. Bespoke elements include a light, ceramic-inspired finish inside and out, as well as ribbon-like detailing on the upholstery and dashboard Gallery feature and an animated Starlight Headliner up above.
It was instructive comparing this modern-day iteration of the completely customised car with Rolls-Royces of the past, many of which found their way onto the greens of the Pebble Beach Golf Club for the concours event. Our favourite, in terms of scale and ambition if not in grace, was the titanic 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI Four-Door Cabriolet, a 6.45m long behemoth only completed in 1993.
Rolls-Royce also unveiled another one-off commission, the Spectre Semaphore, a lemon yellow example of its first and only EV. Key feature was the alarmingly trippy bonnet design, something that was more Haight-Ashbury than Pebble Beach.
Rolls-Royce Bespoke, Rolls-RoyceMotorsCars.com
Nilu27 hypercar
Designer and entrepreneur Sasha and Inna Selipanov have conjured up the funds to create this, the extremely bespoke and very powerful Nilu27 hypercar. With a V12 at its heart, the two-seater is the culmination of Sasha Selipanov’s design career that includes work for Lamborghini and Koenigsegg.
Deliberately provocative, but also self-consciously acknowledging the influence of a number of significant predecessors, the gull-winged creation was resplendent in white bodywork with accents and details in black and red, giving it more than a hint of video game aesthetic. A gated gearshift and array of analogue dials caps a retro-futuristic interior.
BMW M5 Touring
Superficially rather ordinary in such exalted and exotic company, the BMW M5 Touring is actually a stealthy supercar wrapped up in a very practical skin. The M5 has always been the performance flagship of the Bavarian manufacturer’s ‘M’-division line-up, but this is only the third time in the M5’s long history that the dynamics and horsepower have been cloaked with the ultra-practical Touring estate car body.
Under the skin is a hybrid system that’ll do 42 miles in pure electric mode and offers a combined 727 horsepower when paired with a twin turbo V8, making good for a 3.6-second 0-62mph sprint. All this with a huge boot and therefore more space for luggage than all the hypercars on this page combined.
BMW M5 Touring, £112,500, BMW.co.uk
Hennessey Venom F5 'Stealth Series'
Texas-based hypercar builder Hennessey Special Vehicles displayed a triumvirate of its Venom F5, a model that’s occasionally in the running for the title of world’s fastest car. Apart from tapping in to the apparently perennially fascinating association between fast cars and jet aircraft, the Stealth Series cars have a $3m price tag to accommodate a substantial amount of personalisation, including lashings of exposed carbon fibre and hand-applied paint. The engine is a bespoke V8 capable of putting out 1,817hp without a battery in sight.
HennesseySpecialVehicles.com, @HennesseySpecialVehicles
Automobili Pininfarina B95 Gotham
Owners of high performance cars sometimes bristle at the suggestion that their vehicle is a way of overcompensating for something missing in their life, or even a throwback to the simple delights and desires of childhood. Buyers of Automobili Pininfarina’s current Gotham series of electric hypercars clearly aren’t bothered by these charges, as evinced by the one-off B95 Gotham, ‘inspired by the luxury lifestyle of billionaire Bruce Wayne, the civilian persona of DC superhero Batman.’
This is a properly licensed piece of IP, all cleared with Warner Bros, even though there’s no imminent word of any product placement on celluloid. The B95 is an open Barchetta, a sister car to Automobili Pininfarina’s Battista model. In this crime-fighting guise, it’s part of a quartet of unique Batman models, alongside the Battista Gotham, B95 Dark Knight and Battista Dark Knight. All this is in keeping with the idea that multi-million dollar cars need high levels of exclusivity and an interesting backstory if they’re to function as investment pieces as well as automobiles.
Automobili-Pininfarina.com, @AutomobiliPininfarinaOfficial
Maserati GT2 Stradale
The new Maserati GT2 Stradale took pride of place at Pebble Beach’s Concept Lawn, after being unveiled at The Quail. Essentially an uprated and over-egged Maserati MC20 to celebrate the company’s return to GT competition racing, the Stradale (‘road’ as opposed to ‘race’) is a little bit louder, faster, lighter and more powerful than the base car, serving as a springboard for Maserati’s Fuoriserie custom service to go to town with colour and trim.
Tuthill GT ONE
Another company intent on bringing the glory days of Porsche racing back into the present, Tuthill Racing announced this elaborate machine inspired by the 90s-era GT1 Le Mans racer. The low streamlined carbon fibre bodied form of the GT ONE shown at The Quail exhibits an unmistakable Porsche heritage. With a weight of just 1,200kg and a 6-cylinder engine (turbo-charged if you so desire), it should deliver the required performance.
The car was styled by Florian Flatau, a Californian-based designer who has also worked for famed Porsche specialists Singer. Just 22 examples of the GT ONE will be built.
Tuthill GT ONE, price on application, TuthillPorsche.com, @TuthillPorsche
RUF Rodeo
The long arm of Porsche’s influence was also in evidence in the Ruf Rodeo, the latest bespoke model from long-running Porsche tuning specialist RUF. The Rodeo, which was out and about in the twisting valleys around Pebble Beach, is another take on the idea of a 911 as an all-out, off-road sports car.
Porsche has done this itself with its own recent 911 Dakar, but it hasn’t gone as far as the Rodeo. Inspiration here comes from the American West, or rather the ersatz version of cowboy style found on the Ralph Lauren Ranch. The bright orange bodywork contrasts with brown saddle leather trim and embroidered patterns inside on dash, doors and seat.
RUF-Automobile.de, @RUFsince1939
Honda HP-X Concept
Finally, the welcome return of a past icon. Honda’s HP-X concept was designed by Pininfarina and originally revealed at the Turin Auto Show in 1984. Now fully restored by Pininfarina’s team at its workshop in Italy, the HP-X took pride of place alongside other conceptual machines from the age of the wedge. At the time, Honda wasn’t known for its sports car design, and the HP-X was the start of a journey that was eventually lead to the 1990 NSX.
Pininfarina’s exploration of what a modern sports car should look like did away with a lot of cultural baggage. The HP-X (Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) was shaped by aerodynamics, not heritage, with a mid-mounted V6 based on a Honda racing engine. There was also a jet-plane style opening canopy instead of doors, very early use of carbon fibre body panels, and a dashboard that predicted elements like GPS and road-reading sonar sensors.
