Autopian Views: No mas! No mas!

If you've ever attended one of those Sunday brunch gatherings at an upper crust hotel, you know the drill. Stand up from your chair and before taking your first plateful, a quick lap around the banquet tables. In short order your eyes and brain are supersaturated with the view - food of every description. Infinite scale and infinite choice. Starving when you arrived, the feeling of overfilled sets in before your first plate is cleaned. Leaving sooner than you ever thought you would, the sense of guilt for not tasting one of everything lingers for days.

I had that same feeling at the recent Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance (http://www.pebblebeachconcours.net/) . Perhaps the most elegant and encompassing annual auto event in the U.S., neither my calendar nor my wallet permitted me to attend the final day and auction, so a few of my buddies and I headed down there the Friday of Concours week.

I'll offer up a few retrospective entries but first choice has to be the Italian Concourso held at the Monterey Airport. Set to be all Italian all the time, it included breeds and brands from many nations. But the centerpiece, the banquet table so to speak, was Ferrari. Dozens. No, hundreds. F-cars as far as the naked eye could see. All colors, all years, all styles, all models. Lane after lane, row after row, some brand new, some rare classics. It took at least two hours to take a full lap of the setting.

It was both spectacular and overfilling. Never in my life did I think I'd be over-satiated with F-cars. On average, Ferrari builds the most beautiful and exciting automobiles in the world – and have done so for many many years. But frankly, I could go another few weeks without seeing even one. Who knew that even supercars are better in smaller doses?

To wit:

That messy Ferrari buildup: