Low Dollar, High Smileage
Over the decades Monterey Car Week has become a singularly unique and increasingly supercilious spectacle. Auction companies report the newest record sale figures as selfcongratulatory millionaires and billionaires hand out trophies to each other for their latest checkbook sourced restoration and those seeking Internet fame try to outdo each other with the latest super car paint job trend or severity of traffic code violation. Nearly lost in the cacophony of flat plane crank straight pipe rev offs and multi-million dollar sales is a sense of fun and inclusion. Fortunately, Dick McClure serves as a reminder that cars are just a conduit to meeting people and having fun.
Over the decades Monterey Car Week has become a singularly unique and increasingly supercilious spectacle. Auction companies report the newest record sale figures as self-congratulatory millionaires and billionaires hand out trophies to each other for their latest checkbook sourced restoration and those seeking Internet fame try to outdo each other with the latest super car paint job trend or severity of traffic code violation. Nearly lost in the cacophony of flat plane crank straight pipe rev offs and multimillion-dollar sales is a sense of fun and inclusion. Fortunately, Dick McClure serves as a reminder that cars are just a conduit to meeting people and having fun.
A chance meeting with California Mille founder Martin Swig led to McClure registering and completing the tour in a rather tatty 1952 Jaguar 120 Fixed Head Coupe that he fettled himself in his garage. The creaking Jag ended up drawing more attention and eliciting more conversation than the high dollar classics in attendance. From there on the die was cast and Dick participated in subsequent California Mille's with cars that while technically meeting the entry standards, were intentionally down-market price wise, in need of some mechanical attention and high on fun and nostalgia.
One such car, a 1955 MG ZA Magnette, garnered an invite to the inaugural The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering. While admiring the Magnette at a rally rest stop, a fellow California Mille participant took a cell phone call from The Quail cofounder The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie. Sir Michael related that he had learned to drive in a Magnette and insisted on having the MG at The Quail. “I have participated in every Motorsports Gathering since then by finding a new affordable and restorable car every year. One you can be creative with and that will put a smile on people's faces,” laughs McClure.
The list has included a $300 Renault Dauphine, a 1958 MGTD that Dick drove in High School and an oval window VW Bug. “Nearly everyone has a story about owning or riding in a VW Bug when they were younger. The Hispano-Suiza or Lamborghini that were parked on either side of it that year? Not so much,” notes McClure.
This year try to ignore the sound of the super car engines and listen for a bolt of hearty laughter. It will be coming from Dick McClure and the smiling spectators surrounding his Morris Minor. Jay Lamm, founder of the 24 Hours of Lemons and a frequent rally co-driver of Dick's commented, “Any idiot with a large enough checkbook can get a professionally restored car to rally 250 miles a day or run long enough to cross the awards ramp. What Dick is doing is trying to be the reminder amidst the money, glamor, glitz and seriousness that this is really about having fun, meeting people and getting your hands on the hardware. That is really the core of the activity of owning a vintage car. No matter what event you go to, The Quail, The Concours d'Lemons or Pebble Beach, no one is having more fun than Dick McClure.”