With Monterey Auto Week about a month away we thought we would take this opportunity to put together a list of some of our favorite cars coming up for auction. This week’s cars are all from RM Auctions starting with this wild 1965 Mercer-Cobra Roadster.

The Mercer-Cobra Roadster was designed and built to show off the possible use of copper in the automotive world. The car was built on a Shelby Cobra chassis and was designed by Virgil Exner, who created the “Forward Look” design for Chrysler. The car made extensive use of copper to highlight and accent the Exner body design. This magnificent one off Copper Cobra is set to be auctioned by RM Auctions at Monterey. We would love to show up at the local hotrod show and see what people would say. We doubt many would even know it was originally a cobra.

Another magnificent car that RM Auctions will be auctioning off at Monterey is this beautiful 1953 Siata 208/S Sypder that was owned by Steve McQueen. McQueen bought the car in ’56 and kept it for only 2 years before selling it. The car has exchanged hands several times and changed color from its original gun metal grey to this ruby red.

This car has been impeccably maintained its entire life and looks absolutely fantastic. The Fiat V8 runs extremely well and recently underwent a complete rebuild with a few upgrades to improve reliability. Steve McQueen is a big name in the automotive world and when one of his cars is sold they usually fetch a premium. There were only 35 of these cars ever built, so that combined with its history, we are sure it will go for big money.

The last car we are featuring in Part 1 of our Monterey Preview happens to also be a car that was owned by Steve McQueen. This 1970 Porsche 911S is the car that he drove in the movie Le Mans and is also being auctioned by RM Auctions at Monterey. Th car was ordered for the movie and was delivered by Porsche to McQueen on set in France.

McQueen drove this exact car for the opening scene and several other scenes of the movie. This car is nearly identical to a 69 Porsche 911S that McQueen already owned, but for any number of reasons he chose to order another one instead of shipping his back and forth from the States. This car is loaded with every option Porsche had to offer at the time. It has been meticulously maintained over the years and has only had three owners since McQueen.

We love the blacked out look of this classic Porsche interior. This 911S is in really exquisite condition and the value of these cars has really gone up, but given its appearance in Le Mans with Steve McQueen and its history we would expect it to sale for a premium above market value. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Monterey Auto Week Preview…