Villa d’Este brings up all those romantic images of Italy. The villa itself is 145 years old and surrounded by a private park and overlooks Lake Como—you know, the place where George Clooney has a house. It’s all very fancy like and the perfect place for a “competition of elegance,” a Concours d’Elegance, if you…

Considered by many to be the most famous car show in the world, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the climax of the Monterey Car Week festivities. It’s a show held for charity where both pre and post-war cars are gathered at one of the best golf course in the world. As shows go, the Pebble Beach Concours is…

Perhaps it’s lack of discipline, or lack of taste, or lack of culture, or lack of understanding, or even lack of respect, but out of a field of over a hundred cars, the best damn thing about my Saturday afternoon at the fifth Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance was an E30 M3.

This sort of sounds like the ending to a 1980s movie where some rich guy was trying to turn somebody’s grandma’s petting zoo into condos, but gets foiled by a band of plucky nerds: A 1938 Packard, immediately after winning its class at the Hilton Head Concours d’Elegance, rolled into a golf course pond and sank. Oops.

This week, California will host some of the most incredible cars you can think of—or, not think of, if you lose your mind while there. We’ve heard it’s a thing. There are plenty of events to come, but one of the most extravagant already went down. If you couldn’t lose your mind in person, these photos can help.

Pebble Beach is Mecca for people who love cars. It’s not just for the rich and the richer. It really is for everyone who loves beautiful, fast, and wildly incredible machines. We’re going to be there, and you should come hang out.

The lily white (yet absurdly tan) communities of the Monterey peninsula open their doors to automotive enthusiasts this week, but most of them are keeping the gates manned by guards. Here’s how to buy, cheat, lie, and connive your way into all the events you want to go.

Sadly, not everyone in the automotive community gets to experience a Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in their lifetime and see hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cars parked on a golf course. We went there and shot this video so you didn’t have to buy passes, get a hotel, rent a car, and drink 100-year-old…

Each year Monterey County is host to one of the most valuable automotive auctions in the market, with visitors from around the world funneling into a small beach in California to spend way too much money on the cars of their dreams. How much money? Damn near $400 million worth of cars!

Gorgeous.

A 1964 Ferrari F1 car. A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. The Mercedes 300 SLR that won the legendary 1955 Mille Miglia. See and hear them in these short teasers from the Amelia Island Concours, as shot by the great Justin Lapriore of LetsMakeMedia.

Pebble Beach and the festivities that make up Monterey Car Week have gotten totally out of hand. I'm counting over 50 different events, not including private shindigs and ultra-hyper-exclusive reveals. Add in tens of thousands of people, and it's impossible to get around – let alone park. Bike is the answer.

Steering wheels are hugely under appreciated. They're the most direct connection between car and driver, feeding unending amounts of information into one of the most dense areas of nerve endings in the body. Just as importantly, they're a technological barometer of what was necessary to keep the engine chugging…

It's easy to get lost in great cars, and it's especially easy among the jaw-dropping historics of the Amelia Concours D'Elegance. But there's more to it all than the machines themselves.