Today has been the critical viewing period for tomorrow’s sale at the Quail Lodge Resort & Golf Club in Carmel, Calif. With such wonderful quality among the lots on offer, an opportunity like this is a pleasure. For any enthusiast with a historical perspective, this particular one has been a treat. Early in the morning Ike Smith, one of the race mechanics who served on the quasi-works Carl Haas Lola team in 1970, strolled in. He was armed with a bulging photo album to check us out. "I’m pretty darned sure that really is our old car — it’s the long wheelbase one Peter Revson drove after the first car we’d run that year got wiped out at Atlanta. It’s the car we took brand-new to Donnybrooke, and he qualified it there on pole!" proclaimed Ike.

Good news indeed for a car estimated to sell from $180,000 to $240,000. My own research indicated this was "Revvie’s" 1970 late-season replacement car, but I hadn’t been able to prove it. Here had arrived the proof — on the hoof! Prospects look rosy for lot 524.

And then there’s lot 511, the 1968 Ford GT40. These were the cars that won the endurance racing world championship title for the Ford Motor Company, the cars that won the Le Mans 24-Hour Classic. This one’s estimated at $700,000 to $900,000, a bargain by GT40 standards. So, why so reasonable? Well, although it’s a car assembled from all genuine 1960s components, and top quality ones at that, it was never a works team car. It was instead a private owner/driver car built up from separate parts begged, bought and borrowed from the original constructor, JW Automotive, in England in 1968. It was later crashed in 1969, and rebuilt around a brand-new chassis, again bought in period from JWA. It’s now a beautifull old lady, with a middle-of-the-road racing past. But it’s as honest as the day is long, and while it’s not a top-drawer champion car — something ex-Schumacher, ex-Petty or ex-Senna — it has its proper place. Tremendous interest has been shown in her today … lots of "oohing" and "aahing" at the worn, original thin-rim leather-bound steering wheel, and those specially widened rear wheel arches in the iconic "Paul Hawkins" rear body molding. I’ve seen the cell phones brandished, the furtive whispered reports from agents acting for buying principals around the world. The vibes seem kind, at least.

So we drift further up market, to the 1956 D-Type Jaguar, a shortnose car of the British type that won Le Mans three times (1955, 1956 and 1957). Estimate for this beautifully preserved and unimpeachable baby is $1.8 million to $2.2-million. How on earth can a mere motor car command such value? Trust me, if you have a motoring fiber in your body and you lowered yourself into the figure-hugging driving seat of this British Racing Green baby, you’d KNOW why. There’s the thin, cream wood-rimmed steering wheel ahead of you, massive black-faced rev counter beyond, 1950s aircraft-style switchgear falls to hand, the gearshift lever to your left hand, and beyond there’s the voluptuous swell and roll of that typically feline Jaguar hood profile. You know that beneath the hood there’s a responsive, rorty, near 300-horsepower twin-cam racing engine. And you know this baby is still good for 175-180 mph given a long enough straightaway. What’s more, you know this is a racing roadster with great individual history. It’s a window on the past, a throwback to our forefathers, to the enthusiasts who shaped us. It’s all our yesterdays, available right here for some determined buyer’s tomorrow. It’s been a great view day — the boys are painstakingly finalizing their contacts for tomorrow. Here’s hoping it goes well. Heaven knows how hard the entire team has had to work. We’ll look at the efforts required from them tomorrow …