Tiny Soldiers: Pacific Grove’s Little Car Show Informally Kicks Off Monterey Car Week [Gallery]

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Every year, machinery junkies arrive in Pebble Beach—a private enclave that has banned motorcycles unless you’re staying at one of its pricey resorts—for a much ballyhooed gathering of well-heeled automobile aficionados. (Naturally, Sunday’s Concours d’Élégance features a motorcycle category. Message: You can do whatever you want, as long as you’ve got money.) The week, however, begins in a more ramshackle manner over in Pacific Grove at the Little Car Show, a more proletarian affair filled with magical, small-displacement weirdness.

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Bajaj Ape

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For example, we ran across a 1956 Citroën 2CV Camionette, a corrugated van thingy that looks like a Deux Chevaux backed into a small shed. Its engine? A tiny, 425-cc two-cylinder rock-polisher. On the other side of the street, a recent Indian-built Bajaj Ape—a Piaggio-devised three-wheeled coffee cart—makes do with a mere 175 cc.

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1965 Lotus Seven

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At the more sporting end of the spectrum, an OG Lotus 7 showed up. The pre-Caterham machine features a Cosworth plant and, in a fit of Chapmanian excess, weighs a mere half-ton. The 1965 model is right-hand drive, to boot. Though in the cramped confines of a 7, that may well count as center-steer.

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1964 Michelotti Shellette

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Our favorite car in the show, however, was the sort of mind-blower one invariably finds during this week in Monterey. It’s a Fiat 850 Spider. Sort of. In the mid-’60s, 80 cars were converted by Giovanni Michelotti, the man responsible for enduring designs such as the BMW 2002, the Triumph TR4, the DAF 44, and the Triumph Dolomite—our own Rusty Blackwell owns an example of the latter. Michelotti’s Shellette was a riff on the Fiat Jolly, a seaside machine with a surrey top and wicker seats. Even better is that its owner, Barbara Major, hauled it down to Monterey from the Sierra foothills on the back of a Ford COE truck with her husband.

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And with the bite-size hors d’oeuvres polished off, we’re off to dig into the endless parade of meals offered over the next few days. May they all feature at least one dish as satisfying as the Majors’ Shellette.

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