12 Oddballs Keeping It Weird at the 2024 Monterey Auctions

Monterey Car Week brings together some of the world’s rarest and most expensive automobiles. Some are just for looking at. Some are for sale. Mixed in among all that top-shelf metal, though, are some truly weird and wonderful automobiles that we either seldom see, never see, or never even knew existed.

On the oddball front, this year’s Monterey auctions definitely look like they won’t disappoint, so here are a dozen (well, technically 15) rides that fill the quirky quotient, and that we look forward to seeing cross the block.

1919 American LaFrance “La Bestioni” Torpedo Roadster

It looks part Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and part Marmon Wasp, but under that steampunk skin is a 1919 American LaFrance (ALF) fire truck. And although it presents like an early twentieth-century contraption, it’s actually from much more recent times, built by a man named Gary Wales who has constructed several eccentric custom cars like this using reclaimed ALF underpinnings.

Appropriately named La Bestioni (“The Beast”), the car has a monstrous 900-cubic inch six-cylinder engine that drives the rear wheels via two massive chains, and its overall length is 240 inches, 28 inches longer than a new Escalade. Back in 2013, both Wales and La Bestioni were featured on an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage.

2013 Lamborghini 5-95 Zagato

There’s nothing particularly strange about a Lamborghini Gallardo. It was the company’s best-selling model ever, after all. But this isn’t your local rapper’s Gallardo. It’s a “5-95 Zagato”, essentially a Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera clothed by Zagato to celebrate the Italian coachbuilder’s 95th anniversary. Zagato trademarks include the double bubble in the roof and an overall look best described as “not exactly pretty, but definitely distinctive.” The front in particular is a little odd. The way the headlights are situated make them look cross-eyed from some angles, and the the front grille looks sort of like a sad, drunken cow or maybe a donkey with its tongue half hanging out.

Anyway, it’s one of just nine such cars completed by Zagato, has the LP570-4’s Superleggera’s potent 570-hp V-10 engine, and cost $1M when it was new. According to Gooding & Co. this is the first example offered at public auction, and the presale estimate is $400,000 – $500,000.

1949 Fiat 500 B Furgoncino

Furgoncino sounds like a dish you order at a fancy restaurant, but really it’s just Italian for “van.” In this car’s case, it’s the utilitarian version of the original 1936-55 Fiat 500, aka the Topolino. A tiny and affordable city car, it was available in various body styles from two-door sedan to convertible, estate, and van. The Furgoncino version featured blank rear panels as well as side-hinged rear doors, and served as a usable but adorable work van for artisans and bakers all over Italy.

They’re a rare sight in America, and this two-tone beige over brown vinyl and ivory cloth example benefited from a restoration in Turin that left it looking as clean as it is cute. It has a $30,000 – $40,000 presale estimate for Monterey.

2001 Ferrari 550 GTZ Barchetta

Another unconventional Zagato take on a twenty-first century Italian performance car is the 550 GTZ. Starting with a 550 Barchetta, Zagato ripped off the skin and reimagined the shape in aluminum with an interesting mix of creases and curves.

At the same time, Zagato produced a coupe based on the Ferrari 575 called the 575 GTZ. The coachbuilder completed just five 575 GTZs and three 550 GTZ Barchettas. One of those three sold at auction in 2019 for £575,000 ($754,803). This one’s estimate for Pebble Beach is $600,000 – $800,000.

1949 “Go-On II” Alfa Romeo Ice Racer

Gunnar Olsson was an important player in Sweden’s postwar racing scene, and in 1950 founded the Nordic Special racing series, which observed contemporary Formula 1 regulations but often raced on ice. He also campaigned his own cars in Scandinavian events, including the Go-On and Go-On II specials. The Go-On II, which is largely original but reportedly sorted mechanically, is up for grabs in Monterey.

The chassis is home-built and the body created by local coachbuilder Svedbergs in the style of an Alfa Romeo 158 voiturette. The differential, radiator and wheels are from an SS Jaguar, while the gearbox and front brakes are from an Alfa Romeo 6C. Olsson used a Lancia Astura engine in the car at first, but quickly swapped it out for an Alfa 6C 2500 mill. After its competitive career, Go-On II went into a Swedish museum for 55 years, and the consignor bought it in 2015. Apparently, two of the original studded ice tires come with the car.

1968 Serenissima GT

Looking part Pantera, part Ferrari Boxer, this is a one-off by an Italian company called Serenissima. Founded by Italian noble Count Volpi, Serenissima was mostly a racing team that fielded Formula 1 cars and Ferrari sports cars, but also constructed a few racing and road cars of its own. This car is reportedly the last of them, created with input from Alejandro de Tomaso and designer Tom Tjaarda at Ghia.

Underneath, the Serenissima GT has a backbone chassis, and behind the driver sits a 3.5-liter DOHC V-8 derived from Serenissima’s Formula 1 engine. Serenissima showed off the car on the show circuit in Turin, Geneva, and New York. It never went into production, but Count Volpi kept it for over 50 years. It’s still mostly original and has recently been overhauled to driving condition. Gooding’s estimate for it is $700,000 – $900,000.

1991-96 Vectors

If you’re in the market for one of Jerry Wiegert’s star-crossed supercars, aka Vectors, you will have more choices at the 2024 Monterey auctions than anywhere else. Maybe ever. The RM Sotheby’s sale will have four of these over-the-top American exotics on offer.

They’re all out of a single collection, and the purple 1991 W8 in the group boasts a 600-hp 6.0-liter twin-turbo V-8. It sold at auction in 2020 for $720,000, but for Monterey is has an $800,000 – $1,000,000 estimate. The W8’s successor in the Vector story was the WX-3, and this collection has two of them. One is the prototype, finished in Brilliant Aquamarine and powered by a 7.0-liter aluminum twin-turbo V-8 rated at 1000 hp. It has a presale estimate of $1.3M – $1.5M. The other WX-3 is the only roadster version and indeed the only open-topped Vector built. It also has a $1.3M – $1.5M estimate.

Last up is an M12 Vector from 1996. By this time in Vector’s history, the company had been taken over by Indonesian firm MegaTech, which also owned Lamborghini. The M12, then, is essentially a Diablo in Vector clothes. This one has a $400,000 – $600,000 estimate.

1960 Scarab Formula 1

American teams in F1 have been few, far between, and not very successful. The first yankee attack on the Eurocentric series was the Scarab, backed by Woolworth heir Lance Graf von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow (most people just called him Lance Reventlow). Scarab’s sports racers were highly successful in U.S. sports car racing in the late 1950s to early ’60s, frequently beating the best from Ferrari, Maserati, and Lister. Reventlow then decided to have a go at F1 in the 1959 season. He insisted the car be made of 100 percent American bits, and Scarab fielded a front-engine car. Both of these were mistakes.

The chassis of the Scarab F1 car was conventional and similar to a contemporary Indy car, but the guy who designed it had never designed a race car before. Scarab also went to Goodyear (an American company) for tires, but Goodyear had never developed F1 rubber before. The engine designer, meanwhile, was a highly experienced Offenhauser engineer, but the four-cylinder unit he designed was complicated, using both Hilborn fuel injection and a desmodromic valvetrain that uses secondary cams instead of springs to close the valves.

Due to delays, Scarab missed the entire ’59 F1 season, and by 1960 Cooper and Lotus were already showing that mid-engine F1 cars were the way of the future. The Scarab’s Grand Prix debut came at Monaco, but the cars were both unreliable and slow. Neither qualified for the race. Subsequent races didn’t go much better, but Chuck Daigh managed to finish 10th on home soil in the U.S. Grand Prix at Riverside. On offer in Monterey is that 10th place car, one of the three Scarab F1 cars built. Reventlow also drove the car at Spa, while both Richie Ginther and Stirling Moss reportedly drove it in practice sessions. It may have been a dud on track, but it looks great and has been comprehensively restored.

1991 Isdera Imperator 108i

Isdera (Ingenieurbüro fur Styling, DEsign und RAcing) isn’t exactly a household name even among seasoned car fans, but the German automaker built some of the quickest and wildest-looking cars of the 1980s, albeit in very small numbers and with sky-high price tags. Founded by an engineering school dropout named Eberhard Schulz, Isdera started at the beginning of the 1980s to build a production version of the Mercedes-Benz-powered CW311 concept car that Schulz built in 1978. Its first production models were the Spyder 033 and the Imperator 108i, the latter of which features gullwing doors and looks almost as much starship as sports car.

The 108i on offer in Monterey is a later Series 2 version with pop-up headlights, and is reportedly one of just 13 Series 2 versions built. Delivered new to Japan, it now shows just 1912 km (1189 miles) and has an $800,000 – $1,000,000 for when it goes under the lights on the auction block.

2010 Alfa Romeo TZ3

Yet another twenty-first century Zagato oddball up for grabs in Monterey this year is a one-of-nine Alfa Romeo TZ3. Built to celebrate Alfa Romeo’s 100th birthday, it looks like a modern take on the TZ (Tubolare Zagato) race cars of the 1960s, right down to the contrast-colored Kamm tail at the back.

It also looks as Italian as talking with your hands, but a look at the interior, and another one under the hood, reveals that all is not as it seems. Underneath, the TZ3 is not an Alfa Romeo from Milan but a Dodge Viper ACR from Detroit. For about $1M, customers got their V-10-powered Viper shipped to Italy for its tailored carbon fiber makeover. This one is represented with just 1832 miles, and has a $450,000 – $550,000 estimate.

1993 Cizeta V16T

What’s wilder than a wedge-y V-12 supercar? A wedge-y V-16 supercar. What’s cooler than a pair of pop-up headlights? Two pairs of pop-up headlights. Enter the Cizeta, brainchild of former Lamborghini test driver and engineer Claudio Zampolli after he moved to California. After partnering with Giorgio Moroder (aka the “Father of Disco”), Zampolli built a transverse V-16-powered car underneath a sharp Lamborghini-esque shape penned by Marcelo Gandini.

Ultimately, Cizeta completed just nine V16Ts, and this one sold new to the infamous collection of the Sultan of Brunei. The car reportedly never made it to Brunei, however, and was held up in Singapore for over 25 years. It has been returned to running and driving condition, and sold at auction in 2021 for $665,000. For Monterey ’24, it has a $700,000 – $900,000 presale estimate.

1988 ItalDesign Aztec

Surely the oddest car of all for sale in Monterey is the Aztec, created as a part of a 20th-anniversary celebration of Giorgetto Giugiaro’s design firm—ItalDesign. Not to be confused with the also weird Pontiac Aztek (with a k), the ItalDesign Aztec (with a c) started as a one-off concept presented at the 1988 Turin Motor Show. Along with the Aztec, there was also an Aspid coupe and an Asgard “space wagon.” The concept caught the eye of a Japanese businessman who commissioned 50 units to be produced, although only 25 were ultimately completed.

In addition to the Aztec’s sci-fi exterior, the interior is almost as wild. You get in via gullwing contraptions that are more canopies than doors, and this is more of a two-cockpit car than a two-seat one. Both cockpits are identical in size and layout, and the console on the passenger’s side even looks like a steering wheel. Underneath all that Star Trek chic are an Audi 5000 Turbo Quattro five-cylinder engine and five-speed as well as a four-wheel drive system derived from the Lancia Delta. Another Aztec reportedly sold at an auction in Dubai last year for $143,750, while another was bid to $165,000 on Bring a Trailer in 2020 but didn’t meet reserve. The Monterey ’24 car has a much more ambitious $275,000 – $325,000 estimate.