We endured the brutally long line to get into the Nicklaus country club to take a peek at some German iron. Legends of the Autobahn focuses on BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi vehicles, Volkswagens presumably being too pedestrian for the goings-on in Monterey. The Porsche Club of America puts on the Werks Reunion during the same morning. If you?re planning to hit The Quail by noon, it generally means choosing one or the other. On the way out of The Quail, we ran into Pete Stout, former editor of the PCA?s Porsche Panorama magazine. A bracing convo about the marque with Stout is about as good as any Porsche gathering, so we feel like we managed to cover all our bases regardless. In a sea of relatively modern German automobiles?it may actually be possible to be wearied by E30 M3s?we found a number of gems.
First and foremost was the 700RS. The hi-po, last-gasp Hail Mary of BMW?s econoboxer cars, the diminutive RS weighs 840 pounds wet and makes a healthy 80 horsepower from its two-cylinder mill. Only two exist. BMW owns chassis #2, and this is #1.

It?s the car in which Hans Stuck ran his last race before retirement, and the teensy thing is impossibly great: German engineering at its most purposeful and charming. Check out the pattern of the cooling fins on the engine! And those red fans! Every nonstructural piece of tubing is Swiss-cheesed to the point of near failure! In short, this little car was worth braving the traffic for, all by its lonesome.

On the other end of the sc...