One of the things that makes Montreal ownership in the US so cool is the rarity of the car. In early November 2006 we were invited to show Monti at a concours event on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. This is a big dollar "restored and museum car" event with only about 150 invited cars each year. It is the last "big show" of the collector car year. A three day event with a vintage track day and auction on Friday, driving tours for the 150 invited cars on Saturday, plus a concours for the car clubs and then a concours for the invited cars on Sunday. Plus lots of food and fashion events in between. They figured all three days had nearly 40,000 spectators and participants.
Monti was in a class with nine other 1957 through 1976 European Sports Cars. The criteria for invitation are really the uniqueness, historical significance and correctness of the vehicle. The Montreal is seen as both unique (I had countless people stop by and say they had never seen one) as well as significant to Alfa, with its show car body and race car based T33 engine.
After seeing the other cars in the class I knew we had no chance of winning, but I never show Monti to win - only to let others see a car that most have never even heard of. So on Sunday we got up early and drove to the beautiful grass showfield. Parked on my left was a Mercedes 300SL restoration that cost twice as much as my house - in fact the reproduction custom luggage they had made cost more than our Montreal and all the money we spent on making her look and run nice. On my right was a Porsche Tipo 901. This was one of 16 prototypes for the 911. It was the second produced - the first was given to F. Piech who "doesn't remember what he did with it"! So this was probably the oldest living 911 in the world. Almost every body panel and glass piece was a little different than the mass produced car. It was in perfect condition.
So anyway we had a wonderful time and introduced a lot of car crazy folks to the Alfa Montreal. We even got invited on the spot to two more concours next year. Finally thanks to Bruce and the forum members for helping us own a Montreal in the US. Without the website and your valuable help it would be far too difficult for those of us that are not automotive engineers.
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