Is the Coupe a Future Classic?
M Coupes at Sunset - Photo Courtesy of Colby Gregory
I’m in Steamboat, CO on a mini-vacation for 3 days. We went downtown for lunch today and an unbelievable group of cars drove by while we were parking and getting the stroller out (obviously not in the coupe). This group included (in order that I saw them):
- Mercedes 300SL Gullwing
- Ferrari 250 Testarossa (wow!)
- Allard J2X
- Bentley 8-Liter
- Jaguar XK120 Roadster
- Sciata 208S
- Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato
- Porsche 356 Carrera
You may need to click this link first, before the above links will work.
Some of these I recognized, some I’ve looked up since getting home. I eventually got a good look at a decal each of them had on their fender and figured out they were part of the Colorado Grand Car Rally. I went through the website’s gallery of last year’s rally and found many of the cars I saw which helped me identify the ones I didn’t recognize. I’ve linked each of cars above to the photo gallery of the actual car I saw. They were unbelievable in person as you’d imagine.
After we got back to our condo to put our kids down for naps, I decided I may never see some of these cars again and went back out to drive around town and see if I could find any others. My search wasn’t very fruitful as they all had seemed to move on from town after lunch. Just when I had given up and was getting on a back road to come back home, the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato followed by a Ferrari 250 GT pulled out right in front of me! I got to follow them on a meandering road along the river for a couple miles before they roared onto the highway out of town. It’s probably something I’ll never forget.
I know the M Coupe will never have the panache of a Ferrari, Bentley or Aston Martin, but I couldn’t help but think if I had been driving my coupe, I would have caught the eyes of these most discerning auto enthusiasts. Last weekend, while driving to grab a few groceries, I had a 997 Turbo owner almost turning around in his seat to ogle my car at a stoplight. The casual observer may say it’s weird looking, but most true auto enthusiasts appreciate the coupe’s unique design and sense of purpose. Many of the classic cars I saw today would not be labeled classically beautiful by most, but as an enthusiast I could stare at each in detail for hours. All the cars I saw were pre-1961 (as the rally rules dictate), but some of them looked like they could have been built yesterday. The designs are timeless. It’s this feature along with it’s low production numbers that I think could make the M Coupe a classic someday. It looks like nothing else on the road; it didn’t follow many of the contemporary design trends; the casual observer has no idea that it’s already a 12+ year-old design. I think some of the same will apply when it’s 50 years-old. You need to apply to be in the $5500 Colorado Grand Rally. It’s my personal opinion that my relatively humble M Coupe will someday be accepted.