The annual pilgrimage to Monterey, California for the mother of all classic automotive events is about to begin. This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance – the world’s premier celebration of the automobile that will bring hundreds of thousands to the Monterey Peninsula.

Not only is Pebble Beach the most anticipated Concours of the year, but the entire week preceding the event is a buzz with multiple activities, glamorous parties, auctions, historic races, and exhibits. With so many things taking place, we always put together a calendar of where we need to be and when.

Here’s what this year’s schedule looks like:

Tuesday, August 11th

• The Quail Rally - 8am to 10:00pm
• Carmel-By-The-Sea Concours on the Avenue - 9:am to 5:30pm
• Automobilia Monterey - 10:00am to 6:00pm

• The Quail Rally - 8am to 10:00pm
• Automobilia Monterey - 10:00am to 7:00pm

• Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance - 7:00am to 3:00pm
• RM Auction - 6:00pm to 11:00pm

• Concorso Italiano - 9:30am to 5:00pm
• La Dolce Vita at Black Horse - 9:30am to 5:00pm
• Quail Motor Sports Gathering at the Quail Lodge - 10:00am to 3:00pm
• Bonhams & Butterfields Auction - 10:00am to 6:00pm
• Kruse International Auction - 2:00pm to 8:00pm
• Russo and Steele Auction - 5:00pm to 10:00pm
• RM Auction - 6:00pm to 1l:00pm

• Mecum Auction - 10:00am
• Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races - 12:00pm
• Gooding & Company Auction - 5:00pm to 10:00pm
• RM Auction - 6:00pm to 1l:00pm
• Russo and Steele Auction - 5:00pm to 10:00pm

• Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance - 9:00am to 4:30pm
• Automotive Fine Arts Society - 10:30am to 4:30pm
• Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races - 12:00pm
• Gooding & Company Auction - 6:00pm to 10:00pm

Check back next week for our look at some of the very special vehicles that will be either on display or on the block in Monterey.

With practice on Friday and warm-ups Saturday and Sunday mornings, racing will begin after noon for 15 race groups that span nearly every era of motorsports history. “For enthusiasts, the 2009 Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races will be very special,” said Steve Earle of General Racing, Ltd., which owns and organizes the event. “You’ll be going back in time, not just standing around admiring these cars. They are racing, and the sights and sounds are the real thing.”

Notable drivers include England’s Sir Stirling Moss, often called “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship,” driving a 1960 Lola MK I, South Africa’s Desire Wilson (one of only five women to have entered an F1 World Championship Grand Prix), driving a 1952 Glockler Porsche, and USA’s John Morton driving a 1985 Nissan GTP.

For more information on the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races, visit www.montereyhistoric.com.

This year it seems the “Best of the Worst” wants to stake their claim and be recognized for their contribution to the car world just like those gracing the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The event is called the Concours d’LeMons and they will be celebrating the oddball, mundane and truly awful of the automotive world.

Concours d’LeMons is organized by the same miscreants behind the 24 Hours of LeMons and Billetproof. Entrants will have a multitude of classes to choose from like Rust Belt American Junk, Needlessly Complex Italian and Soul Sucking Japanese Appliance. There is even one class titled Most Effluent in which the car with the highest emissions wins!

So if you feel the need to see an AMC Pacer, Ford Pinto or Chevy Vega again, head down to Toro Park in Monterey, Calif. on August 15th. All the details can be found on the Concours d’LeMons website.

With recent events of American auto makers going bankrupt, could a genuine all American car soon be hard to find? Come to find out, they’ve been hard to find for a while.

The American Automobile Labeling Act (AALA) mandated that virtually every new car display the percentage, by cost, of its parts that originated in the United States and Canada. This measurement index provides documentation that a 100% American made car is all but extinct because not one has exceeded the 95 percent point.

For example, in a recent article from Cars.com, they report that based on sales through May 31, 2008, of the 35 most popular U.S. built 2008 and 2009 models, only 43 percent of GM, Ford and Chrysler contenders had domestic content ratings of 75 percent or higher. Although the labeling of a car's domestic parts content can be debated, from how many US workers an automaker employs to where the company's profits end up, none have been given the label 100% American made.

So the worrying question is; have we already seen the end of the All American Auto?” Or, could a car maker focus on making “All American” limited edition production automobile to attract sales, and would anybody buy one?

In other words do you think there could be a new market segment which preserves the lineage and purity of the “All American”?

Now 25 years and 3400 restaurants later, Papa John wants his Camaro back and he’s asking for America’s help to find it promising a reward that’s just been increased to $250,000.

The pizza mogul doesn’t have the Camaro’s VIN, but remembers this about the car. It had a:

• Sunroof
• Indiana License plate 10z 54
• Split bumper
• Original speedometer read 10 MPH too fast
• Velvet interior, not vinyl
• “Slap shifter”
• BF Goodrich Tires
• Positrac differential
• No air conditioning

Now RM Classic Cars is leading the way in the collector car hobby by offering buyers and sellers of vintage and special interest automobiles a convenient and credible means of conducting business over the Internet with the introduction of its exclusive online auction scheduled for Sunday, August 9, 2009.

“We’re thinking outside the auction block,” said Dan Spendick, Consignment Specialist, RM Classic Cars, Inc. “RM’s 30 years of experience in the collector car hobby is being extended into the realm of e-commerce by offering our valued clients a cyberspace alternative to traditional auction venues.”

RM Classic Car Online Auction will offer buyers a third-party assessment of each vehicle’s condition with verification of proper titles and ownership with detailed condition reports and extensive photography of each consignment weeks in advance of the sale.

This will allow buyers and sellers to conduct their transactions with RM from the comfort of their home or office without the expense and time commitment of travel to a traditional auction venue. But for those of us who can only afford to admire, we'll still choose to make the trek; just being in the presence of these historic vehicles is worth the plane ticket.

Consignments for RM’s Classic Car Online Auction are being posted daily on the company’s website.

Six of the Packard Concept cars are owned by New Jersey collector Ralph Marano. The seventh and last Packard Concept Car produced, the 1956 Packard Predictor, is coming from the National Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana.

While one or two of these concept cars were built in numbers of two or sometimes four, most of them exist only once. Marano has been collecting Packard Concept Cars for over 20 years and has displayed some of them on and off, winning concours awards where he showed them, but the Fairfield County event will be the first time all of these cars will be seen together.

The collection includes:

1948 Vignale
The very first of the concept cars is the 1948 Vignale. The car actually started as a 1939 model in Italy and remained carefully hidden during the war. The Vignale was completed in 1948 and turned up in a used car lot in San Diego in 1953.

1952 Pan American
This was Packard chief designer Richard Arbib's personal car. Originally intended as a race car, it is now painted the original green gold paint, which contains 24 carat gold. Six Pan Americans, the basis of the Packard Caribbean, were made in five to six weeks as promotional cars and sent to different parts of the country.

1952 Macauley Coupe
This coupe was built for the son of Ed Macauley, who was head of Packard styling at the time. It features a unique supercharged engine that was painted red, and is the first coupe to be equipped with a rear windshield wiper.

1953 Packard Balboa
Only two Balboas were made, both of which are now part of the Ralph Marano collection. He is the third or fourth owner of the car he will be bringing, and the car is next on his list to be restored.

1954 Packard Panther
Marano owns no less than two of the original four Panthers. Made of fiberglass, both cars were subsequently modified by Creative Industries.

1955 Packard Request
The Request’s grille reflects the Packard customers' requests for a return to the vertical prewar radiator grille. This car features a fiberglass hood , a V-8 engine and Caribbean trim on the rear quarter.

1955 Packard Predictor
The Predictor represents the end of postwar Packard Concept Cars. It remains today at the National Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana, who after learning that Ralph Marano was displaying all of the other Packard Concept Cars, generously agreed to let the car go to the Fairfield event.

More information regarding the Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance and the Packards display can be found on their website.

Suggested Reading: Packard - Producing Quality and Elegance for 53 Years.

There are many classic cars that would meet and beat the fuel economy of those qualified for purchase under this new legislation. Our 1964 Morris Minor Traveller gets about 45 mpg around town and the 1951 MGTD will average 35 mpg.

The Honda Civic has been EPA champ six times, in three different decades, beginning with the Civic CVCC in 1975. And let’s not forget the iconic VW Rabbit Diesel who was the mileage champ for five straight years beginning with 1978, peaking at 34/40 for the 1982 model with a 4-speed manual transmission.

Maybe the Morris and the MGTD will only do 0 to 60 in well, okay neither one of them reach 60 mph unless they’re going downhill, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be recognized for their fabulous fuel economy.

Having said that, we think it may be best to refer you to our About.com Car colleagues that specialize in new cars to buy and the old ones to scrap regarding Cash-for-Clunkers.

Suggested Reading:

Cash for Clunkers: How it works, and will you use it?

Cash for Clunkers Vehicles List Compiled by Edmunds

Last year the Barrett-Jackson three day inaugural auction saw over 50,000 guests and sold 533 cars for over 29 million dollars.

Each day the bidding got underway at the Mandalay Bay Resort, Casino and Event Center at 11:30am and continued until 8:00am the next morning. That means on average, one car sold every 7.5 minutes for $54,000.

With that type of success in the midst of a declining stock market, we can see why they want an extra day for this year.

Also, Barrett-Jackson claimed that fifty percent of registered bidders were first timers regarding their October, 2008 auction. That’s a compelling argument pointing to, despite a poor economy, the buying and selling of collector cars still remains relatively strong.

Photo - Michele Hamer

The Shriners Hospitals for Children is a one-of-a-kind health care system dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing pediatric specialty care, innovative research and outstanding teaching programs. When you purchase a ticket to this exposition of fine European cars, you’ll be helping host of physicians, surgeons, nurses, researchers and other pediatric specialists who are transforming the lives of children on a daily basis.

The La Dolce Vita Automobili event takes place at the Black Horse Golf Course on the Monterey Peninsula August 14, 2009 during the famous Monterey Car Week. For more information, please visit the company’s website.