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Perfect Is As Perfect Does

Patrick C. Paternie

August 2, 2002

“Pebble Beach is about quality, not quantity,” declares Mounger. “We like to have between 175 and 200 cars. We try to avoid a mob scene so the cars and their owners’ hard work are best appreciated. Last year, we started stretching the spacing of the field a bit to keep things genteel.”  

Ticket prices have also been raised, not only to control crowds on site but to keep traffic and parking to a manageable level. Mounger reports that Sunday’s crowds average around 15,000 people. The higher ticket prices do more than just make life in the area more manageable on concours Sunday, since proceeds from the concours ($500,000 in 2001) go to local charities like the United Way of Monterey County.  (Click image to enlarge)

Mounger points out that while Pebble Beach stresses perfection, the event still maintains a sense of humor. He recalls the time an entrant debated so anxiously about whether whitewall or blackwall tires best became his car that he could only resolve the dilemma by equipping one side in black, the other in white. The judges never noticed.

This year, Pebble Beach goes topless with the Naked Truth feature class. Since so many cars—including Duesenbergs and Rolls-Royces—were sold as rolling chassis to be enclosed in beautiful custom bodywork, the Pebble Beach board has rounded up a number of “bodyless” cars to give people a glimpse of the equally beautiful engineering skill that lies beneath. A perfect reminder in an imperfect world that, at Pebble Beach, beauty and perfection are never only skin deep.