To catch that special car in public, carspotters know they have to be ready at any time.

The smell of exhaust, the roar of engines, the snapping of camera shutters – nowhere was the return of Car Week more apparent on Aug. 8 than in downtown Monterey.

Vintage race cars, before they took part in the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, filled a closed-off block of Alvarado Street, where drivers met with the hundreds of attendees, chatting about their vehicles and their racing strategies. Others hopped inside their cars to rev them up, much to the delight of the crowds.

While these cars were the main attraction of the evening, they weren’t the only draw for many who came to Monterey. There was another show happening, one that wasn’t advertised, and one that can happen anywhere at any time.

People combed the side streets throughout downtown, cameras in hand, looking for rare and unique cars parked or driving through. Others camped out at intersections, excitedly putting their camera’s viewfinders to their eyes and quickly snapping the shutter as they witnessed a car that caught their attention.

It could be anything, from a multi-million-dollar McLaren P1 to an endangered Mazda RX-7 from the 1980s.

“That’s a baaad car right there,” said a man as a Porsche drove by – in this case, “bad” means “good,” judging by how the word was said.

On Aug. 10, more crowds gathered in downtown Monterey for the show before the show. As has become tradition for Car Week, people congregate on Del Monte Avenue in front of the Monterey Conference Center as transporter trucks unload vehicles that will be sold during the RM Sotheby’s auction later in the week.

Sure, most of the paparazzi was focused on the trailers and what lies inside them. But again, it’s an opportunity to experience who – and what – is driving by.

This is carspotting, a hobby that has exploded in popularity since the advent of social media that makes it easier to share photos, especially with Instagram. And with Car Week hitting its high gear, the opportunities to do so locally are nearly endless.

Think of carspotting like birdwatching, except with steel and plastic instead of animals. Birders keep a list of their “life birds,” or those birds they saw for the first time in a specific spot in the wild, while carspotters keep a photo of those cars they witnessed in person. The “wild,” for purposes of carspotting, can be your neighborhood street or a parking lot.

Carspotters say downtown Carmel is a hot spot to catch something you don’t see everyday. Upscale establishments are always good places to spot a unique car – think outside high-end restaurants and valet parking stands, says Doug DeMuro, a San Diego-based YouTuber with 5 million subscribers who runs the popular auto auction website Cars and Bids.

DeMuro was once referred to on the internet as the “king of carspotting,” and his efforts were popularized in a 2009 article in Automobile magazine, where a reporter followed him as he drove around on the hunt to spot rare cars.

DeMuro says. “You might be surprised where I’ve seen some of the most exciting and crazy cars, and you always have to be ready for them.”

DeMuro says the carspotting hobby is far from the days when he first started in 2005 with a “clunky digital camera” while driving around in a 1996 Volvo 850 Turbo sedan.

“I think it’s so cool that we now have access to so many photos of amazing cars just being used at random times in various places,” he says.

DeMuro adds that he will be attending Car Week for the first time since 2018.

“The highlight for me has always been seeing all the special cars driving around on the street between the events – much more than the events themselves,” he says. “Walking through Carmel-by-the-Sea on a nice evening during Car Week and seeing street-parked Bugatti and Ferrari models, and other special cars, is so exciting.

“I tell people there are car enthusiasts who have incredibly exciting cars they only ever take out for special occasions – and for those enthusiasts, Car Week is precisely the occasion.”