“Monday 5 Things” ….. Concours d’Existence …..
26.08.17 by D. Paul Graham
Because Mondays are worth more once you stop worrying about what the judges think.
“Quietly Elegant” The finest designs don’t demand attention. They simply make looking away difficult. Photo by D. Paul Graham. 1905 American Mercedes45 HP Double Phaeton. 17 Mile Drive, Monterey California 2026
Pebble Beach is a wonderful place to look at cars. It’s an even better place to eavesdrop. This past week, I did plenty of both.
Wander the lawn long enough and you’ll hear serious conversations about provenance, scarcity, matching numbers, and whether a bolt made in Stuttgart in 1957 is somehow morally superior to one made there in 1958.
You’ll hear an eight-figure automobile described as “a very good buy.” Another is undervalued because only four remain, prompting everyone to nod gravely as though discussing an endangered species. There are cars from every period of automotive history, blue blazers, Panama hats, and enough casually mentioned zeros to make your 401(k) quietly excuse itself.
Collectors defend acquisitions with words like “provenance” and “investment quality.” Which is code for “I wanted it and could afford it.” Owners call themselves “custodians,” a lovely word for someone who just wired several million dollars to an auction house.
Somewhere between the twelve-cylinder engines, creative definitions of “investment,” and walking the show field at dawn, something occurred to me. The conversations were about cars, but we weren’t really talking about cars. We were talking about value. Perfection. Scarcity. Desire. What deserves preserving. What’s worth pursuing and our remarkable ability to rationalize what our heart had already decided it wanted. Which sounds suspiciously like life.
This morning’s M5T starts on the concours lawn with five conversations about cars that somehow led back to life.
1. “IT’S COMPLETELY ORIGINAL.” Except, of course, for the things that have been replaced. At Pebble Beach, originality is prized. Original engine. Original body. Original interior. Original documents.
At any concours around the world, the closer something remains to what it was at the beginning, the more interesting and valuable it often becomes.
People are different. We sometimes spend years trying to remain the person we once were. The career we chose at twenty-five. The expectations someone handed us at thirty. The definition of success we inherited before we were old enough to question it.
We proudly announce that we haven’t changed. I’m no longer sure that’s a compliment or a positive. Cars may become more valuable when they remain original. People usually become more interesting when they don’t.
Life replaces parts. Experience modifies us. Failure changes the paint. Love rewires things. Loss occasionally removes entire panels. Wisdom, if we are fortunate, replaces a few components we probably should have recalled years ago.
As I’ve gotten older, I don’t believe that our goal should be to remain completely original. It should be to become increasingly authentic.
2. “I COULD HAVE BOUGHT ONE OF THOSE FOR $8,500.” This may be the official sentence of Pebble Beach, or during any concours, anywhere. Someone’s college roommate owned the Cobra. Someone could have bought the Ferrari. Someone passed on the Porsche. Someone sold a Gullwing because they needed something more practical. Usually a Volvo.
We smile because hindsight makes everyone an investment genius. But life has its own version of this sentence. “I should have taken that trip.” “I should have started the company.” “I should have called him/her.” “I should have learned that.” “I should have spent more time with them.”
We tend to recognize the value of things after scarcity has done its work. Cars. Opportunities. Friendships. Parents. Children who were somehow eight years old seemingly five minutes ago.
There will always be things we should have bought but I think the bigger danger is accumulating things ‘we should have done’. There are worse things than taking the wrong road. One is spending years wondering where it could have taken you.
3. “IT’S ALMOST TOO PERFECT.” Only at Pebble Beach can perfection become a flaw. Someone can spend years restoring a car. Every bolt correct. Every stitch researched. Every surface flawless. Then a judge walks around it, pauses thoughtfully, and says: “It may be a little over-restored.” Imagine that. You worked so hard making something perfect that you accidentally removed some of what made it real.
We do this with life too. We wait for the perfect plan. The perfect timing. The perfect body. The perfect financial position. The perfect business idea. The perfect relationship. The perfect moment to finally begin.
Meanwhile, the people who stopped auditioning for perfection seem to be having all the fun. Pebble Beach may celebrate cars polished to within an inch of their lives, but the best conversations rarely come from what’s sitting perfectly still on the show field. They come from how the car got there, the improbable purchase, the wrong turn, the restoration that took twice as long and cost three times as much, or the road trip that seemed sensible several bottles of wine earlier. Perfection may win the ribbon, but the detours usually win the dinner conversation.
I’ve come to realize that perfection was never the point. Maybe the occasional ding, detour, and questionable repair are simply proof that we entered the concours instead of standing behind the ropes. Life isn’t asking us to remain pristine. It’s asking us to go somewhere. The odometer, after all, isn’t merely a record of depreciation. It’s evidence of distance traveled. Perhaps a life well lived is measured less by how carefully we preserved it than by the miles we chose to drive.
4. “HOW CAN IT BE WORTH THAT MUCH?” I overheard this often this week. At Pebble Beach, this question usually follows the revelation that the beautiful old car in front of you could be exchanged for several houses and possibly a small Caribbean island. The answer, inevitably, includes scarcity. Only 36 were built. Only 12 remain. Only three have this body type. Only one raced at Le Mans.
Scarcity creates value. Which makes you wonder why we behave as though the truly scarce things in our own lives are unlimited. Time. Attention. Health. Dinner with people we love. Another summer. Another conversation with someone who won’t always be here. All are finite, scarce, and often, priceless.
We protect rare automobiles because we understand they can’tt be replaced. Yet we casually spend Tuesday afternoons as though an unlimited supply is waiting in a warehouse somewhere. It isn’t.
Maybe scarcity doesn’t create value. Maybe it simply forces us to notice what was valuable all along.
5. “OF COURSE I DRIVE IT.” This may be the best thing said anywhere at Pebble Beach. Someone is standing beside an automobile worth several million dollars and asks the owner if they drive it. They look confused by the question but answer, “Of course.”
Then suddenly the entire weekend makes sense. Because owning something and experiencing it are not the same thing.
We are remarkably good at saving things for later. The good wine. The best china and crystal. The expensive shoes. The vacation days. The idea. The dream. The conversation. Someday becomes our largest storage facility.
We preserve so much that we forget to enjoy it. Cars were made to move. Wine was made to open. Music was made to play. Friendships require showing up. Lives, presumably, were intended to be lived rather than preserved in climate-controlled conditions for some future owner.
A stone chip is occasionally proof that you went somewhere. So is a scar. So is a mistake. So is a story you still laugh about twenty years later.
At Pebble Beach, the most valuable cars may be the ones with perfect provenance. However, I’m increasingly convinced the most valuable lives are the ones with mileage, because eventually every one of us reaches the same judging lawn. I suspect the final question won’t be whether we remained pristine. What matters won’t be how carefully we preserved ourselves, but whether we went somewhere while we had the keys.
Here’s to a week of choosing the road over the show field, the story over the score, and occasionally ignoring anyone holding a clipboard.
© 2026 D. Paul Graham / imageGRAHAM, llc All Rights Reserved.
Paul continues to believe the best provenance begins with, “You’re not going to believe what happened next.”
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