1981 Lincoln Mark Vi Bill Blass Designer Series on 2040-cars

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Watch 14 hot rides take over concept car lawn at Pebble Beach

The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is an annual celebration of the beautiful, old cars that grace Monterey Car Week. But Monterey – and Pebble – features lots of newer metal, too, and that includes the concept lawn at Pebble Beach. Now, "concept lawn" isn't a totally accurate name anymore, and you'll see why in the list below. This year especially, plenty of production cars can be found in the area once reserved for the conceptual. Still, we're happy to see them. Here's what's featured this year: Alfa Romeo 4C Spider Audi R8 BAC Mono Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage R Buick Avenir Galpin-Fisker Rocket Speedster Hyundai HCD-16 Vision G Coupe Icona Volcano Infiniti Q60 Lamborghini Asterion LPI 910-4 Maserati Ghibli McLaren 570S Rolls-Royce Wraith By our count, that's seven concepts out of fourteen cars. But it still makes for one hot group of metal. Check 'em out in the gallery above. Related Video: Related Gallery 2015 Pebble Beach Concept Car Lawn View 38 Photos Image Credit: Copyright 2015 Drew Phillips / AOL Design/Style Alfa Romeo Audi Bentley Buick Infiniti Lamborghini Lincoln McLaren Porsche Concept Cars Videos Original Video Pebble Beach

Living Life Large: Driving $2 million worth of cars in one week

Monterey Car Week has quickly become one of my favorite events of the year. There's something for everyone – classic car shows, modern concepts and new vehicle debuts, auctions, racing, and so much more. From a media perspective, there's also a chance to drive a ton of cars. Many automakers bring their latest wares out to Monterey for us to test during our limited free time, and it's a great opportunity to experience fantastic metal against a gorgeous backdrop. That's exactly what I did this year. Instead of flying into Monterey and being driven around, my journey started in Los Angeles and ended in Napa, and I managed to get behind the wheel of some $2 million worth of new cars. Some were old favorites, and many were new experiences. But looking back, this was one of the best weeks of driving I've had in years. Rather than try to come up with some common arc to tie these cars together, here are my notes on all the cars I tested in California earlier this month, presented in the order in which they were driven. 2016 Mazda CX-3 The CX-3 pictured here isn't the exact one I drove in California, but it's close. The only difference was color – my delivered-to-LAX tester wore Mazda's awesome new Ceramic hue (pictured below on the MX-5 Miata). I used the CX-3 to slum through crummy Los Angeles traffic for two hours on the way out to Santa Barbara, with a quick stop at In-N-Out Burger on the way for good measure. A lot nicer inside than I remember. Everyone praises Mazda for its excellence in engineering and design, but there's a lot to be said for the improvements in overall interior refinement. Quiet, comfortable, and well-equipped; the CX-3 made sitting on the 405 freeway a lot more pleasant. Not all that functional. I had a hard time fitting a week's worth of luggage for two people inside. The cargo area and rear passenger compartment were filled, with only enough room on top to see out the back window. A Honda HR-V would've swallowed all that luggage with plenty of room for more. So good to drive. Not surprising, since this wasn't my first time in the CX-3. I knew this CUV would be good on twisty roads, but on the highway it's really exceptional. Road and wind noise are minimal and the overall ride quality is a comfortable sort of sporty. This is definitely something I could drive every day – it's enjoyable during commuting and entertaining on more interesting roads.

Junkyard Gem: 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V Bill Blass Edition

The car news in 1979 America wasn't all bad, despite gas rationing and Detroit V8s producing 25 horsepower per liter of displacement. That's because some of the plushest, flashiest, white-powder-ready luxury coupes in history were rolling off assembly lines at the time. Ford's game was strong when it came to such machinery; there were long-snouted Thunderbird Town Landaus, opulent Cougar XR-7s and — best of all — the special-edition Lincoln Continental Mark Vs. The Lincoln Division had partnered with four prestigious fashion houses to lift the Mark V to unheard-of levels of conspicuous snazz, and I found one of those cars in a Denver car graveyard. The design houses that worked their magic on these Mark Vs were Givenchy, Pucci, Cartier and Bill Blass. Each had a distinctive color scheme and mob-boss-grade interior. The Pucci cars were the rarest, with only 763 built during the 1977-1979 model years whereas 6,720 Bill Blass Mark Vs were built during that period. Today's Junkyard Gem is the second 1979 Bill Blass Mark V I've found in this very junkyard; the previous find happened back in 2015. Bill Blass was an Indiana native who began his design career as a member of the 603rd Camouflage Battalion of the United States Army during World War II, helping to deceive the Germans with a fake "Ghost Army" poised to hit the beaches far from the actual D-Day sites. Blass worked with Ford from 1975 through 1992, when the last Bill Blass Mark VIIs were built (Cartier stuck it out much longer). The 1979 Bill Blass Mark V came with "Tu-Tone Midnight Blue Metallic" and white exterior paint, while the interior was done up in white or blue leather with contrasting straps and buttons bearing the Blass logo. This one is pretty icky after 44 years, but hints of its former glory can be seen. A white padded-vinyl "carriage roof" was standard equipment on the Bill Blass Mark V. It was a $1,200 option (about $5,286 in 2023 dollars) on ordinary Mark Vs. The one on this car trapped water against the sheet metal and caused it to rust out. All 1979 Mark Vs got the Cartier clock, with calendar function. A 400-cubic-inch (6.6-liter) V8 was mandatory on all 1979 Continental models. This one made 159 horsepower and 315 pound-feet, which was grim for a coupe that scaled in at nearly 4,600 pounds. The MSRP for the '79 Bill Blass Mark V was $16,546, or about $72,880 in today's money. The Collector's Series Mark V cost even more that year: $22,029 ($97,031 after inflation).