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Monterey Car Week has descended upon us once again, gracing our eyes and ears with some of the most extravagant and exclusive offerings from the automotive world. Each year some of the wealthiest automotive enthusiasts from around the globe converge in Monterey, California, for a week of fossil-fueled posturing. The strutting isn’t all for show, though, and the crown of Car Week—the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance—is widely considered the premier car show in the world. Winning a Pebble ribbon means an instant jump in a car’s valuation and marks immense status in the world of collector cars. With very few exceptions, cars accepted to the Concours are not allowed to return within a 10-year period unless they have changed ownership and are freshly restored (or they are an original preservation car).If that all sounds as interesting to you as it does to us, you can still enjoy the show, even without spending hundreds of dollars for a ticket. Like years past, we’ll have reporters on the ground scouting our favorites, and we’ll be liveblogging here on the site. We’ll also be uploading regularly to our Instagram, so make sure to check that out for the best sights and sounds. The options below are also helpful if you’re looking to get information straight from the horse’s mouth.Pebble Beach Motoring Classic (August 7–20)Sure, most of the cars around Monterey Car Week probably see less pavement than that project rotting behind your house, but that won’t be true for the entrants of the Pebble Beach Motoring Classic. Starting August 8, the entrants will depart from Kirkland, Washington, taking a relaxed eight days to drive roughly 1500 miles, before arriving in Monterey, California. Last year’s entrance fee for one car and two people totaled $14,000 and did not include accommodations in Monterey. Unfortunately, this one will be hard to tune in to unless you can get yourself to the route. As the cars are being driven by the owners, they probably won’t be spending their drive uploading to Instagram. Pebble Beach ConcoursRolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (August 16–19)Some of the rarest race cars in history will spend the four days between August 17 and August 20 racing around Laguna Seca Raceway. Some 550 cars were invited, with the main focus this year on the 70th anniversary of the Corvette. In addition to Corvettes of every generation, there’ll be historic Formula 1 cars, Trans Am racers, and IMSA cars from the 1970s. There should be a stream on the Laguna Seca Youtube channel, or follow on social using these tags: #RolexReunion #MontereyCarWeek #WeatherTechRaceway. More Car Week InfoLegends of the Autobahn (August 17)The American clubs for Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz join together every year to host an all-German marque Concours d’Elegance held in Pacific Grove, California. Follow these tags and accounts on Instagram for photos and videos: #legendsoftheautobahn @bmwcca @audiclubna @mercedesbenzclubofamerica.The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering (August 18)The Quail prides itself as being the most glamorous of the Pebble events, even if the main reason everyone’s there—the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance—is happening two days later. This year’s featured themes include the 50th Anniversary of the 1973 RS Carrera, Porsche 959s, the Bentley 1950s R-Type Coupe, and Eyes on Italian Design. Keep tabs with #thequail on August 18.Adam Swords/The QuailConcorso Italiano (August 19)Italian cars strike directly to the heart of the automotive world, and Concorso Italiano is focused on as many as 1000 Italian cars and motorcycles. Follow @concorsoitaliano and #concorsoitaliano for more information. Concours d’Lemons California (August 19)If reading about all of these obscenely rich owners of classic and exotic cars has you feeling sick about the single wrinkly dollar bill in your wallet, unwind with the deliberately wacky Concours d’Lemons. Follow @concoursdlemons and #concoursdlemons on August 19, or check out the Lemons website for more info and a recap video.Eddie AltermanPebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (August 20)If your bank account looks anything like ours, you probably don’t have the cash to shell out $525 per ticket and lots more on hotels and food. Thankfully, you can stream the Concours d’Elegance on August 20. Bookmark the official Pebble Beach livestream and make yourself a nice cocktail with your best liquor. It’ll still be cheaper than the drinks on the lawn in California, and no one will judge you for incorrectly tying your bowtie. Associate News EditorJack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1. After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf. More

The arrival of an open-topped DB12 is no surprise but still a welcome addition.The DB12 Volante’s power-operated fabric roof folds in just 14 seconds.With the roof up, the 671-hp V-8 gives a 202-mph top speed.As night follows day, so the open-topped version of an Aston sports car arrives shortly after the coupe. In this case, that means the entirely predictable, yet also entirely beautiful, DB12 Volante, which is the convertible version of the regular DB12 we drove for the first time last month in Europe.As with the coupe, Aston is describing the Volante as a “super tourer,” intended to combine the performance of a high-end sports car with the grand-touring capabilities of a traditional Aston Martin. Mechanically it is unchanged from the fixed-roof version, using the same twin-turbo 4.0-liter AMG-sourced V-8 engine making peaks of 671 horsepower and 590 pound-feet. The option of a V-12 engine is no longer available; Aston is reserving that for the forthcoming replacement for the DBS Superleggera. Full Details and SpecsYet even with only four liters of capacity and eight cylinders to call on, the DB12 Volante will still be toweringly fast. Aston claims it will be capable of a 3.6-second zero-to-60-mph time, which is just one-tenth slower than the corresponding time for the coupe. Both versions of the DB12 have identical 202-mph top speeds, although the Volante will only be able to hit that peak with the roof in place. According to Aston’s figures, the convertible is 240 pounds heavier than the coupe, meaning it should be around 4350 pounds when we get it on the scales.That RoofThe Volante’s roof is an eight-layer fabric top that hides entirely beneath the rear deck once lowered. Toplessness suits the DB12 particularly well, especially for those who aren’t especially fond of the black trim that extends rearward from the coupe’s greenhouse. The Volante loses that entirely, and the roof-down profile is compelling in its simplicity. Four convertible-top fabric colors will be available: black, red, blue, and black/silver. Aston says that the roof takes just 14 seconds to open and 16 seconds to close, with this possible at speeds of up to 31 mph.The Volante will be offered solely with an eight-speed automatic and rear-wheel drive, with reactions sharpened by an electronically controlled locking differential at the rear. Adaptive dampers are standard and claimed to have a 500 percent increase in “bandwidth of force distribution” compared to the ones used by the DB11 Volante. The new Volante will be softer than the coupe, having different rear springs and what Aston describes as a “dedicated damper tune”; it is also claimed to have 5 percent better torsional rigidity than the DB11 Volante. The most significant change for the DB12 Volante is the same as on the coupe, the arrival of a redesigned and higher-quality cabin featuring both improved ergonomics but also the use of a touchscreen interface rather than the cumbersome turn-and-click controller of the DB11. While the mechanical and structural transformation between DB11 and DB12 is effectively a heavy facelift, this is one area where the new Volante should feel like an entirely new car.The DB12 Volante will make its debut during Monterey Car Week this week and will go into production in time for the first buyers to take delivery before the end of the year. Official pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but we’re told to expect it to be somewhere around the $265,000 mark in the U.S. That’s a relatively modest increase over the $236,000 DB11 Volante, one that looks justified given the scale of the improvements that have been wrought. Senior European CorrespondentOur man on the other side of the pond, Mike Duff lives in Britain but reports from across Europe, sometimes beyond. He has previously held staff roles on UK titles including CAR, Autocar and evo, but his own automotive tastes tend towards the Germanic, owning both a troublesome 987-generation Porsche Cayman S and a Mercedes 190E 2.5-16. More

Rarer than a Porsche but more affordable than a Ferrari, the Lotus Esprit offers thrilling performance and exotic looks.This one has just over 21,000 miles on its odometer and has had a thorough recent servicing.With three days to go before the auction ends on August 15, bidding on the Bring a Trailer online auction is at $41,111.Car and DriverThe desire for a Porsche or a Ferrari is both broad and deep, but to lust after a Lotus is to throw logic and reason out the occasionally malfunctioning power window. To paraphrase Shakespeare, love is not love which bends with the tow-truck driver to remove; with a Lotus, periodic interruption of service is worth the way the cars get under your skin. Want reliable? Get a Camry. Want passion? Take a gander at this gorgeous wedge of English beauty, an all-black Lotus Esprit powered by a twin-turbocharged mid-engine V-8.Today’s pick from Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is a 1998 Lotus Esprit V-8 with just over 20,000 miles on the odometer (it’s a Canadian car, so that reading is actually 35,000 kilometers. Sorry). Bring a TrailerThe World’s Sexiest DoorstopThe original, wedge-shaped Esprit arrived in the late 1970s as the world’s sexiest doorstop, and received only two major refreshes over a 28-year production run. This mid-1990s version is fairly rare—in Canada, Lotus only managed to sell four of these in 1998; in the U.S. market, just 155 found homes—making it a far more exotic option than something like a 911 Turbo, but with performance that’ll have you nipping at the Porsche’s heels.From the C/D ArchiveWhen Car and Driver reviewed the Esprit V-8 in 1998 (linked above), John Phillips knocked the car for a balky shift action and heavy clutch and couldn’t help but note the aging platform. Still, there was no arguing with the performance supplied by the 350-hp twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-8.Though the new V-8 may not sound Ferrari-esque, it certainly inspires the Esprit to supercar velocities. Sixty mph now manifests in a spine-straightening 4.1 seconds—three-tenths quicker than the old four-cylinder Esprit S4S and seven-tenths sooner than the still-older Esprit Turbo SE. In fact, that zero-to-60 time places this Lotus only a tenth of a second behind a Viper GTS, which, of course, has the advantage of two more cylinders and 100 extra horse­power. The Esprit V-8 decimates the quarter-mile in 12.7 seconds at 112 mph—three-tenths and 4 mph better than the old S4S. And it rushes to 150 mph 10.3 sec­onds sooner than the S4S, placing this Lotus only one second shy of the 0-to-150-mph time of, say, a Ferrari 355. Bring a TrailerBring a TrailerAnd also, just look at it. This black on black with a nicely contrasting tan interior is like something Batman might drive. Assuming among his gadgets he also had a Bat Flatdeck and didn’t mind occasionally showing up to the Bat Signal half an hour late to find Commissioner Gordon pointedly looking at his wristwatch.Affairs of the HeartAll joking about wonky reliability aside, what a Lotus really offers what most British sports cars bring to the table: true ownership involvement. If the shift linkage of an Esprit needs finessing, and if the V-8’s lack of low-rpm power requires throttle management, then that’s just part of the driving experience. A Lotus needs you back, and on the right day and the right road, the driving experience is absolute bliss.Bring a TrailerThere’s really no way to explain the appeal further: if you know, you know. And if you know, this is an extremely desirable example of the irresistible appeal of a proper sporting Lotus. With four days to go, bidding is at $41,111. Click on over to Bring a Trailer to bid with your heart, not your head. Contributing EditorBrendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. More