Tickets for the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, which this year took place on Sunday, August 17, average around $500. If you want to attend the boozy, bougie event called The Quail the Friday before, that ticket will set you back at least a grand. Hotels in Monterey during Car Week start at $400 a night. Specialty shows around the area and track passes at Laguna Seca are $100 to $200ish. All of these events are fabulous, and if you have the money, or a friend with access, it's an amazing way to spend the week, but Overcrest founders Kris Clewell, Jeff Bull, and Jake Solberg felt that Monterey Car Week seemed to be lacking an entry-level activity.
So, for the 2025 Car Week, the group organized a campsite open to anyone for just $600 for the week. They set up at the Tira Nanza winery in the hills over Carmel Valley and kicked off the weekend with a curated and interactive art event, Sportscar Vacationland, that included many of the quirkiest creators in the automotive scene. Photographers, indie publishers, custom builders, and one amateur florist all joined in to showcase their cars and skills.
Clewell and company have been building space for car enthusiasts through curated rallies around the United States under the Overcrest name. "We started as a podcast," Clewell told me, when I stopped by during their setup for the event. They soon moved offline, encouraging classic-car owners to meet up and explore the pretty roads of the Ozarks, Monument Valley, or the Sawtooth Mountains. "This is our first event in California," Clewell told me with a rather cheeky grin. "We think you guys have too much out here, we encourage you to come see the rest of the country." As a loyal Californian, but also an enthusiastic road tripper, I made no argument.
While I was there, Clewell and Bull were hucking hay bales while artist Felix Holst directed a forklift danging a Porsche 911 into position. In one corner, a 944 was being taped off for eventual live painting during the show, and in another, sign painter Bailey Clayton was adding the finishing touches to a barn labeled "Wheel Museum," in curving script. The attention to detail is an Overcrest hallmark. Everything felt designed, but nothing felt false. Aesthetic, but still authentic.
"Is the DJ here yet?" someone asked Clewell, and while he left to deal with that, Bull showed me around the rest of the open air and barn setup. "We want to give people a place to be special during Car Week," he said. "Not rarest or most expensive, but art makes people equal. We wanted to make an accessible experience."
Overcrest's organizers aren't sure if they'll do the same event in 2026, but they are already thinking of more ways to give artists a showcase and encourage people to get out and drive. We asked participating artist Syd Cummings to grab some shots during the event so more people could feel a part of the scene. Scroll to see them all.
The three artists behind the build shop and social media account 944Driver brought a safari-style Porsche 944 Turbo in white to the Overcrest event, built a paint booth, and handed water guns full of paint to a crowd of all ages, giving the car an improvisational respray.
Preparing the first shot.
A tragic miscalculation.
No children or adults were harmed in the making of the splatter 944.
Some adults were painted pink, though.
Video of the final results in action is up on the @944driver Instagram page.
Christopher Runge, the founder of Runge Cars, stands beside one of his polished chrome creations. Runge builds these cars by hand, using tools and techniques pioneered by old-school coachbuilders. As proof that Sportscar Vacationland was an addition to, not a replacement for, the other events during Car Week, Runge had a busy weekend attending traditional shows like The Quail as well as the Overcrest party.
@christopher_runge on Instagram
It was impossible to miss renowned artist Felix Holst at Sportscar Vacationland, thanks to his plein air painting setup: a Porsche suspended vertically from a crane. This unique setup allowed the dripping paint to evoke a sensation of speed once this fully functional art car returned to horizontal.
Felix post-drip.
Maybe it was inspiration from the Andy Warhol BMW on display during the Pebble Beach Concours, but hand-painted art cars that really drive are becoming a way of standing out in a world of grey, black, and white on the road.
One person's nightmare of a falling garage shelf full of house paint is another person's perfect finish.
Can't be a worse sleeping experience than a $400/night Motel 6 room.
Even the barns were custom-painted for the event.
Soon to be restored.
Photographer Syd Cummings had prints on display.
Cummings is known for creating fanciful tableaus with cars and costumes.
The wheel museum was just that, a display of interesting rollers past and present.
A relic from the old days of 5-lug NASCAR wheels.
A collaboration between Raceline and Wu-Tang Clan. Only two full sets were built.
It's all connected, man.
With its campsites and open fields, not to mention plenty of chances to do finger painting, Sportscar Vacationland was more family friendly than most events during Car Week. Artist, enthusiast-entrepreneur, and Overcrest veteran Joshy Robots sits on his 911 with his daughter. His brand Earth to Robots offers apparel and accessories inspired by the world of air-cooled 911s, with added whimsy.
Publisher Ryan ZumMallen prepared a pop-up library at Sportscar Vacationland with a suite of art-focused Carrara Media motoring hardcovers for guests to peruse. ZumMallen most recently released a fantastic collection of motorsports photographer Larry Chen's collected work.
Designer and event producer Steve "Pelle" Pelletier is the personality behind Portland’s Donuts and Drip event, and brought a rally-ready pair to Sportscar Vacationland: his dripped-out 911, and the "Drip Wagon" art kart, seen here in a rare moment of silence between dusty donuts.
"I was invited to Sportscar Vacationland to build one of my surreal photography sets onsite. The display, inspired by Jamiroquai’s 'Cosmic Girl' music video featuring an identical Diablo, features a space-helmeted mannequin stepping out of a Lamborghini Diablo SE30 as the car overflows with lavender flowers and lush greens—a sharp contrast to the California dust of the Overcrest backdrop." —Syd Cummings
While the rest of Car Week is a heavily trafficked fight for parking spaces, the winery offered plenty of parking and a slower pace--despite the fast cars in attendance.
Guests arrived, painted cars, watched films, and shared their plans for the coming weekend.
Porsche tends to be the favored make of artists, a mix of its pleasing and instantly recognizable shape plus its comparative reliability, says Overcrest founder Bull. That didn't mean there weren't hearty welcomes for less common brands, like this Lancia Stratos.
Classic.
No horses but plenty of horsepower in that barn.
Racing driver and video host Nicole Johnson camped out for the week with, but not on the roof of, her 911 SC.
@nicolejohnsonoffroad on Instagram
A sampling of cars that have done various Overcrest rallies.
Can we get a collective "awwww" for this French cutie?
It's not just Porsches getting the custom graphics treatment.
if you match the car, it's yours.
Making use of the Safari lift.
Until next year, that's it from Sportscar Vacationland.
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