Can cars be art? An honest thief, Lewis Hamilton's blistering drive and Silver Arrows at Carmel

Finding an empty space where your car should be is a horrible feeling, sending your heart to your boots and a cold hand to your stomach. Such was the case for a friend of mine when his car was stolen from a Nob Hill street recently, and the police were sympathetic but pessimistic as to the chances of finding it. But at 2.11am a couple of days later, heart and spirits were lifted by the news that his car had been found, undamaged, only a few blocks away, and would he come and pick it up. It had been left on a street that was being cleared for cleaning and when a traffic warden scanned the license plate, an alert came up that it was stolen. It was a reassuring example of a system actually working, and things got even better when he noticed a sticker noting an oil change. The garage confirmed that the thief had indeed, in the single day the car had been in his possession, changed the oil. A considerate criminal indeed!

Huntington Square, with the Pacific Union Club and the Fairmont Hotel 

crowning Nob Hill. Not a place one associates with car thieves

It’s been a good few weeks in the motoring world all round. Last Sunday, Lewis Hamilton took the driver’s crown in the Formula 1World Championship for the second time. The heat of Abu Dhabi and the glitter of the glamorous, almost vulgar, circuit meant nothing to him as he swooped his Mercedes around the track, not for an instant bothered by another car - and, thankfully, there was no artificial result from the double points on offer. It was a dominant end to a thrilling season that has defied the naysayers with all the ingredients of a great championship – bitter rivalry, brilliant mechanical design, young pretenders, a faltering old guard, dramatic crashes, political shenanigans, money worries and even tragedy, in the form of an horrific accident that put talented young Marussia driver Jules Bianchi into a coma. It was a reminder that, even if the bad old days of multiple deaths in tin-can cars are long gone, this is still a dangerous sport requiring lightning reflexes, unwavering concentration and untiring strength. People may grumble that Formula 1 is all about computers, a procession of machines fuelled by staggering amounts of money, and yes, it does have those elements, but no one who has watched Hamilton’s rise from karting king to the top of the podium in 2014 could deny that he deserves his crown. He’s unfailingly honest, sometimes too open but always genuine, and his rivalry with teammate Nico Rosberg had been compelling. Rosberg was a worthy opponent, despite the odd dodgy moment (puncturing Hamilton’s tire in Belgium), but in the end, 11 wins to five is pretty convincing. Further down the grid, cheerful Daniel Ricciardo brought the champion Sebastian Vettel down a peg or two, ‘Iceman’ Kimi Raikkonen never warmed up and English gentleman Jenson Button proved his worth – it will be a great disappointment if he finds no seat next year. Watching races, I still get the same thrill I felt hearing the engines from our television compound at Silverstone, where I worked for production company HayFisher during the British Grand Prix for several years. Whether under monsoon rains in Brazil or baking sun in Texas, Formula 1 is about more than machines, it’s about men, the fastest men in the world.

The entrance to the Formula 1 Paddock at Silverstone, England

The seat-of-your-pants excitement of the early years of the Mercedes team has been captured this year in a project that re-creates 12 dramatic scenes from the racetracks of the 1930s. The artworks commemorate 80 years of the Silver Arrows, a name that was coined when team principal Alfred Neubauer ordered the white paint stripped off his Mercedes cars to meet the weight limit at the Nurburgring on June 3rd, 1934. The Silver Arrows Project, led by Jan Rambousek and Tomas Kopecny, uses a combination of photography and CGI, not to mention a full cast of extras: an appropriate method to celebrate the blend of design and mechanical excellence that goes into a racing car. It seems likely that the Silver Arrows will continue to dominate, so perhaps, in 80 years' time, another dedicated group of enthusiasts will be capturing this spectacular season with some other newly invented artistic method.

The Legend is Born: Nurburgring, Germany, 3 June, 19234

Stoned to Life: Lasarte, Spain, 22 September, 1935

Do the Donington Hop: Donington, England, 2 October, 1937

A Dampened Victory: Spa, Belgium, 25 June 1939

I saw the results of the Silver Arrows Project in California this summer, at an event that is all about the beauty of automobiles, where art and mechanics combine. The golf course at Pebble Beach in Carmel is open on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Easter Day and every other day of the year to wealthy local residents who spend their time between the links and the club bar. Except for one day. When the Concours d’Elegance circus comes to town, the manicured greens are hidden beneath glittering rows of chrome, leather and polished walnut dashboards. This is the jewel in the crown of the classic-car calendar, when enthusiasts from all over the world compare stories of restorations and discoveries. There are horseless carriages from the 19th century, long-bonneted tourers from the 1920s and sleek Maseratis from the 1940s. Men in Panama hats converse knowledgeably about cylinders and hubcaps and go into raptures over the smallest detail, from Lalique crystal radiator covers to fretworked door panels. Elegant (and some underdressed) ladies sip Champagne and Campari, judges in dark-blue blazers peer into the depths of the dashboards and the roar of Bugatti and Ferrari engines echo from the displays of 21st-century power on the other side of the clubhouse. It's all in a good cause - it has just been announced that the amount raised for charity this year was a record $1.9 million, all of which goes to local groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monterey County, the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and the Animal Friends Rescue Project. Philanthropy is alive and well in California, especially when there's a chance of a good day out at the same time.

A 1910 American Underslung Traveler Toy Tonnneau, 

winner of the Antique class

2014 Steve Burton/Used courtesy of Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

Lord Bamford's Rolls-Royce, 1937 Rolls-Royce 

Phantom III Vanvooren Sports Cabriolet, first in its class

2014 Steve Burton/Used courtesy of Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

The Rainbow Ruxtons, the result of a turbulent and ultimately abortive 

collaboration between architect-turned-set-designer Joseph Urban 

and William J. Muller to design the first front-wheel-drive passenger car. 

In the end, only 100 were made and only 19 still exist

1954 Ferrari 375 MM, Best in Show

Courtesy of 2014 Kimball Studios/Used courtesy of Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

My favourite car at the show was the epitome of mechanical beauty. Impeccably restored by Essex-based, family-run company P&A Wood (who also worked on Lord Bamford's Rolls-Royce), it was a vision of elegance in duck-egg blue and silver, with cut-glass carriage lamps and butter-soft leather seats. One of the oldest Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts in the world, it was produced in 1908 and first owned by Charles Angas, who drove it all round the UK before taking it to his native Australia shortly before the First World War. Known as the Silver Dawn, its Roi des Belges tourer body was built by Barker coachbuilders, the company of choice for early Rolls-Royces. Still retaining its original chassis, engine, gearbox and axles, the Silver Dawn completed the 1,800-mile Centenary Alpine Trial last year, an event that commemorated the first Alpine Trial held to prove the Silver Ghost's reliability. No performance was sacrificed in the pursuit of beauty here.

The 1908 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Barker Roi des Belges, known as Silver Dawn 

Can I take it home, please?

The Top Gear boys have approached the question of whether cars can be art a couple of times in typically rumbunctious fashion, cobbling together an art gallery on one occasion and facing a panel of stony-faced art experts on another. Despite their fooling, they were all three convinced that yes, cars can be art, and I wholeheartedly agree. There is something beautiful in an object designed purely to perform as well as possible, whether a bridge, an aeroplane or even the wholly mechanical method of opening and closing the cell doors on Alcatraz. Honda picked up on this a few years ago with their sublime advertisement for the Honda Accord, in which every single part of the car is laid out to act in a domino effect to illustrate the slogan 'isn't it nice when things just work?'. With automobiles, aerodynamics and safety determine much of design (the new Minis might be safer with their endless supplies of airbags, but they're not nearly as attractive, or mini, as the originals), but within the bounds of performance there is infinite scope for beauty. At Carmel, the 100-year-old Daimlers and Bentleys were very different to the sleek, powerful concept cars of the future, but equally pleasing to the eye. If only I could be like American television host Jay Leno and fill a garage with examples of the most gorgeous cars ever made: vintage Rolls-Royces, E-types, battered Land Rovers, proper Minis... all testaments to their creators' visions of form and function. 

One of Silver Dawn's exquisite carriage lamps

The Spirit of Ecstasy and variations thereof: turning the humble 

bonnet/hood ornament into a thing of beauty

 

I'd be quite comfortable driving or reclining in these interiors!

Who said bodywork had to be plain?

Not sleek, but definitely stylish. The 1904 Turner-Miesse 10hp Rear-Entry

Tonneau, a steam car built by Thomas Turner & Co of Wolverhampton, England

American beauty: the classic Thunderbird lines of a Chevy convertible

Jay Leno with a bubble car at the Concours d'LeMons, the alternative

event at Carmel that celebrates the quirky, the odd and the downright bonkers

21st-century styling: the concept cars of McLaren and Mercedes

Me with my dream car: a buttercup-yellow E-type at Silverstone Classic

It will be fascinating to see if the Silver Arrows can streak away from the others in next year’s Formula 1 World Championship. Will McLaren find their form? Will Vettel return to the front? Will any of the smaller teams survive? Whatever happens, it’s a safe bet that the golf course of Carmel will become once again the magnet that draws the finest examples of automotive design in the world.