This extraordinary looking machine is just that – very extraordinary indeed. This is a new Spanish supercar that’s described as a combination of a Formula 1 car and jet fighter that can be driven on the street. It has two seats, one behind the other, jet fighter style, under a removable glass canopy. It’s powered by a 720 horsepower V12 Biturbo powerplant, which means that it’ll certainly have Formula 1 rivaling levels of acceleration. Each car will be custom made and hand crafted according to the specific needs of the driver / owner. Each car will also have its own individual poetic verse engraved in the chassis of the car – very romantic indeed.

The D-Type Auto Union has an advanced V12 engine developing 485bhp with a two-stage supercharger. During the 1939 racing season, Auto Union raced D-Types in all the major Grand Prix events. The surviving Auto Union team cars were ‘rescued’ by the Soviet army in 1945 and transported from the devastated factories in Zwickau and Chemnitz. American Paul Karassik researched the Auto Union legend and accumulated a vast number of components, including Auto Union 19’s complete, unspoiled chassis and the V12 engine that powers it today. Auto Union D-Type chassis 19 is the only surviving Grand Prix car of its type. It has a proven racing history and has been exquisitely restored to running order.

The Delage Automobile Company was founded in 1905 by flamboyant Frenchman, Louis Delage – who was previously an engineer with Peugeot. This particular 1937 model (winner of the special ‘Elegance in Motion Trophy’) has coachwork by Letourneur et Marchand of Paris, who built a series of aerodynamic coupes for Delage that pushed the typically French pillarless style to its aesthetic limits. The Delage Company was unable to weather the economic storm of the early 1930s, and its demise in 1935 lead to the amalgamation of Delahaye and Delage in 1936.

Ferrari built just 5 brand new TR59s for the 1959 season, and only 4 remain – all of which were on display at Pebble Beach. They were the first Ferrari’s to have disc brakes, and in 1959 also had new 5-speed magnesium gearboxes. The phrase ‘Testa Rossa’ is one of the most evocative in automotive folklore. Its literal translation from Italian is ‘Red Head,’ which refer to the very famous red cam covers of Ferrari engines.

The car in the foreground is chassis # 0768, shown in the form in which it was driven to victory by Phil Hill at Riverside in 1959. This car also placed second at Sebring, and third at the Nurburgring. Plus, it raced at the Targa Florio and at Nassau in 1959. Overall the Ferrari TR59s scored a remarkable 10 victories between 1958 and 1961 in international sports car races.

Also on display were chassis # 0770, 0774 and 0776, which, among them, had wins at Le Mans, the Buenos Aires Grand Prix in Argentina, and the 12 hours of Sebring at the hands of legendary racing drivers such as Olivier Gendebien, Paul Frere and Dan Gurney.

To give you a sense of just how collectable these cars are – a 1957 Ferrari 250TR was recently sold at an auction organized at the Ferrari factory in Maranello by RM Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s, for a record breaking $12.2 million USD (Rs. 57 crores), making it the most expensive car ever to be sold at an auction.

The 540K debuted in 1936 at the Paris Auto Salon with state-of-the-art independent coil spring suspension, and a 5.4 liter, 8 cylinder supercharged engine – denoted by the ‘K’ in its name, which stands for Kompressor. The supercharger enabled this model to produce 180 horsepower, which made it one of the fastest production cars in the world at the time. It was built in an assortment of styles – from closed coupes to seven-seat sedans. There were also six different cabriolet designs – this particular cabriolet was delivered to the Mercedes dealer, Carlo Saporiti, in Milan. It’s one of the 97 built at Sindelfingen plant in Germany, and one of the very few with left-hand drive. Today, the 540K and its predecessor, the 500K, remain highly collectable. A 500K from the collection of Formula 1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, was auctioned for almost $1.5 million USD in 2007.

This car was piloted by Dick Seaman in the 1938 German Grand Prix to a first place finish. Following this victorious win, the 1939 season car featured a revised body on the existing 1938 chassis with a newly designed radiator, which gave the car a smaller frontal area. The redesigned 1939 W154 won five of the season’s seven races. For the 1939 season, Hermann Lang drove this car to first place in the Pau Grand Prix, the Belgian Grand Prix and the Swiss Grand Prix. During 1939, multistage supercharging was introduced, and a new carburettor was fitted with programmable jets that could be opened at specific throttle settings.

There were no less than 10 Ferrari 166MM Touring Barchettas on show at Pebble Beach. This particular model was completed in April 1949, and won the first race that the Barchettas participated in that year – the 1949 Mille Miglia, driven by Clemente Biondetti and Ettore Salani. That June, Ferrari US importer and racer, Luigi Chinetti, and Lord Peter Selsdon also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in this car. These two wins made Ferrari a household name worldwide. That same year, Clemente Biondetti and Igor Troubetzkoy also won the Targa Florio in a 166 – making it the only car to ever win all three races. This particular car has a ‘corsa’ interior, which means the dash and top of the cockpit have no leather covering, and it has no carpets – essentially meaning that it’s race-ready.

The car in the foreground is an all-new American supercar from California-based Devon Motor Works – the Devon GTX. It’s powered by a not inconsiderable 8.4 liter V10 that produces 650 horsepower, which has already helped the GTX set the production car lap record at the famous Laguna Seca racetrack – just a stone’s throw away from Pebble Beach. The car in the background is the McLaren Mercedes SLR ‘Stirling Moss.’ This particular model is the swansong for the McLaren Mercedes SLR, which has been produced in different guises over the past decade. This astonishing looking machine has been built to honour Sir Stirling Moss’s win at the legendary 1955 Mille Miglia – during which he and his co-driver covered the roughly 1,000 miles from Brescia in the Italian countryside to Rome and back in a record breaking 10 hours, 7 minutes, and 48 seconds – at an average speed of almost 100 miles an hour.