Right across the street from Charles Agapiou Bentley/Rolls Royce on Santa Monica Blvd is the kind of dealership you could just stand and drool in for a while.  Heritage Classics is exactly what it says on the label: a purveyor of high-end desirable classics parked wall to wall.  Unlike a lot of classic dealers, this one didn’t seem to specialize in one marque or even genre: there was everything from a classic Porsche 356 to a Cadillac Eldorado.  But what lured me in the door first was this…

A Ferrari 330GTC, what I think is probably the prettiest front-engine V12 Ferrari ever made.  Styling by Pininfarina, a 4.0L Colombo V12 breathing through six carbs up front, a five-speed, two seats and independent suspension.  The price tag of more than a quarter-million dollars is hard to swallow – until you look at the price tags of other period V12 Ferraris.

A 1960 Drauz-bodied Porsche 356B Super 1600 Roadster.  This had the low-cut windshield of the Speedster, but with more practical wind-up windows.  How much are rare, restored bathtub Porsches going for these days?  $124k for this one.

’57 Jaguar XK140, ’74 E-Type Series III V12, Austin Healey 3000 MkI, 356B Roadster, Corvette…  that’s enough of a dream garage just right there, isn’t it?

The Series III E-Type has never been my favorite, but I’m not saying I’d kick it out of bed.  This one has less than 20k original miles on it – although the $79k price tag could almost buy you a new XK Convertible.  Which would you choose?

This 1960 Austin Healey 3000 Mk I is a classic example of the “big healey” – 4 seats, big six, a baby XKE if you will.

A 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III, 48k miles.  Can you pose much harder in anything for $80k than this?  What a classic.

The interior of a 1965 Rolls Royce Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupe, a proper name if I’ve ever heard one.  Look at all that wood.  Glorious.

A 1968 Shelby GT350 Mustang, 40 miles since a full frame-off restoration.  Asking price: $129,500.

It’s a strange, strange world when you can pay less for a clean, low-mileage 2004 Ferrari 575M than a 1968 Ford Mustang.  This one only has 12k miles, and lists for $114k.

You want massive?  1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.  Should’ve brought a wide-angle lens.

I will admit, this is the first Lancia Flaminia I’ve ever seen.  Pre-Fiat-era Lancias are so gorgeous and interesting.  This one is a 1960 Flaminia 2.5 Coupe.

Want a classic, well-preserved Mercedes Benz for less than a Nissan Versa?  This 1961 Mercedes 190 Sedan is only $9,500.  I doubt you’d be setting fire to the tarmac, but it’s a neat old thing.

Perhaps it’s ridiculous, but I see this Isetta and I think – “Hmm, that is approximately one Hayabusa drivetrain away from glory.”

Another ’74 Series III E-Type parked alongside a gorgeous ’63 Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider.  The 2600 was the last inline-six Alfa Romeo, before the brand began focusing on more mass-produced cars.

This 1971 Mercedes 280SE 3.5 started life as a hard top, and was converted to a Cabriolet at some point.  It looks like a well-done conversion, but you know Mercedes pricing is a little crazy when a converted cabrio with 100k+ miles is going for 70 grand.  Still, lovely.

There’s a gallery with some additional images below!  I hope you enjoyed Car Spotting in Los Angeles.  If you’re interested, here’s Part I, Part II, and Part III.

And a jet-black Bentley Turbo R behind it.  If there’s a better name for a Bentley out there than Turbo R, I’m not aware of it.  I got out of the car and wandered up the sidewalk into the front lot of Charles Agapiou Ltd Bentley/Rolls Servicing and Sales.  A dealer and shop that specializes in old, “real” (that is to say, not a Volkswagen Phaeton) Bentleys and Rollers.  Ahh, Hollywood.  I love you.

Just the front of their lot is impressive.  Check this out: a Bentley Continental T.  This was the “sporting” variant of the Continental R, with a 4″ shorter wheelbase, wider fenders, and a warmed-up version of the 6 ¾L Bentley turbocharged V8.  With 420 horsepower and an “are you serious?’ 650 lb-ft of torque, this old-school pushrod V8 can push the 5,400lb Continental T to 60 in under 6 seconds.  This is a real Bentley, not some new-money rappermobile.

My kind of traffic jam is when your Continental T is blocked in by a 335i on one side, and a Bentley Arnage on the other.

Moving inside, there is a great selection of used cars to pick from.  Somewhat out of place, but welcome nonetheless was this late-model Ferrari 456M GTA.  (That’s the one with the 4-speed automatic.)

Here’s a 1964 Rolls Royce Convertible.  Based on the Silver Cloud III, this Mulliner-bodied convertible is one of the last separate-frame Rolls Royce vehicles made.

Just absolutely beautiful.

Some cars look smaller in real life, like the Veyron.  Some look bigger, like the Arnage.  Enormous.

An 80′s Bentley convertible, from back when they were nearly indistinguishable from Rollers – besides the grille.  I don’t think the wheels really suit, but this was the 80′s, man!

Parked behind that was a Bentley Azure convertible by Mulliner.  This giant convertible was the drop-top variant of the Continental.

Bentley knows how to do interiors.  This is Classy with a capital C.  All that wood, leather, and hand-made everything, the car as an art form rather than a commodity.  No wonder they were so expensive.

The last thing I’ll showcase here is something you’re guaranteed to never see somewhere else.  Ever.

This is a 1967 Jaguar Pirana.  Excuse me, this is the 1967 Jaguar Pirana, a one-off concept car built for the 1967 London Motor Show.  The styling is by Marcello Gandini of Bertone, and it’s built off of a 4.2L Jaguar E Type 2+2 chassis with a steel monocoque body.

It was actually designed with input from the Daily Telegraph.  Companies that provided a hand on the Pirana project included Smiths Industries (a special A/C system, instruments and stereo), Triplex (special laminated glass), Lucas Electronics (oh lord, the headlights), Connolly (the leather), and Britax.  If the styling looks like a Lamborghini Espada and a DeTomaso Mangusta had a baby, that’s because Gandini penned the Espada as well, which came out a year after this concept.

It was originally painted silver (you can see the original brochure for the car here), but at some point acquired a green paint job and moved across the Atlantic Ocean.  The idea was to create the “ideal car,” a 2+2 grand tourer that could streak down the highway for hours at a time.  It’s not every day that you see a 44 year-old one off Bertone/Jaguar concept car!  That would be somewhat like finding the Jaguar/Bertone B99 concept in the back corner of a used car dealer in 2055.  Not likely.

Gallery below – check it out!

Sometimes I realize I have a certain lack of perspective when it comes to the car thing.  Perhaps it’s a regional thing.  I’m in Los Angeles for a few days (a family member is getting married), and some of the cars that raise eyebrows in Raleigh would be taxis around here.  If there’s an area in the US that embraces car culture more fully than the city of Angels, I’m not sure what it is.  This is a place where a C-class Mercedes is like a Taurus, and you routinely see more than ten Bentleys a day.  It’s special.  My shutter finger has been getting tired.  Check it out.

See, in the middle of the eastern seaboard, a CL55 AMG Supercharged is the kind of car that makes you raise an eyebrow.  Here, it’s just another used Benz.  Gorgeous though.

Jaguars are very popular around LA.  Here’s a 510bhp XFR.

These still exist: a LaForza SUV.  I want to keep descriptions brief, but this is basically an Iveco truck chassis with an Italian leather interior, fuel-injected Ford 302 Windsor, 4×4, automatic – an Italian competitor to the Range Rover sold in miniscule quantities in the 80′s and 90′s.  Also called the Rayton Fissore Magnum.    This one was flat black, of course.

A gorgeous Ferrari 599 GTB cruising into the Starbucks right next to the local Tesla dealer.  Speaking of which, I had to stick my head in there -

A Tesla Roadster Sport (v2.5.)  This is one of the last 16 new Tesla Roadsters left in the world; they stopped production recently (to get ready for the Model S sedan) and the remaining electric sportscars are still for sale.  These cars are really absolutely stunning up close in person.

The dark blue paint is amazing.  You can see a lot of Lotus Elise in the car (which isn’t surprising considering it’s basis), but the Tesla does have it’s own character to it.

The Tesla’s electric motor and single-speed tranny.  It’s so simple and small.  Of course, the battery pack consists of 6,831 slightly-larger-than-AA sized Lithium-Ion batteries, and the whole thing weighs just shy of a half-ton (990lbs.)  So the fact that the Tesla at 2,800lbs is only around 800lbs heavier than an Elise is actually pretty impressive.

Bentley’s Continental GT is a fairly common site, especially around Rodeo drive.  The Flying Spur sedan variant is really classy, too.  It’s just odd to see so many Bentleys.

Green is not a color you associate with Ferraris, but it works surprisingly well on this 430 Scuderia here.  Of course, if you’re on Rodeo drive, there’s a certain car that has to be seen.

Hint: it’s down there on the bottom left.

It’s apparently always parked in front of the Bijan design store.  This black and yellow Veyron (valued around $1.7M) has Iranian designer Bijan Pakzad’s signature on the rear wing, his icon on the hood (a ghostly face), and is seen here with some lovely ladies accompanying it.

Sure, it’s over the top.  But the man was known for over-the-top, so why not a custom-painted Veyron?

All 1,000bhp of the Veyron’s 8.0L W16.  Having never seen one in real life, one thing I was surprised with is how small the car is in person.  You see it in pictures and it’s the big, menacing hulk of a car, all giant rubber and intakes.  On a city street, standing next to it, it looks maybe the size of a Mercedes SL or a Mustang.  Sure, it’s noticeable – but the size was a surprise.

Picture opportunities like this don’t present themselves frequently – a Rolls Royce Ghost driving past a Veyron?  Hard to pass up.  Anyway, there’s a gallery with some additional photos below – and I’ll be posting more of the beautiful cars from this city soon.

This week saw spy shots of Mercedes’ new CLS with a bigger boot.

Here’s a little history lesson. ‘Shooting brake’ is a term to describe a two-box car body style that combined coupe features and estate features. The name ‘Brake’ in this case doesn’t mean the brake for stopping a car though. It was a name for a large carry frame with no body used for ‘breaking in’ young horses or to be used to carry people back in the 19^th century. ‘Shooting Brake’ was originally used to describe a vehicle that carries a driver and gamekeeper in the front with up to six hunters in the back on benches being able to shoot whatever they were hunting for from the vehicle. The term was then later used to describe custom built luxury estate cars used by sportsmen that wanted to carry themselves and their equipment in style.

Examples of the shooting brake in the 20^th century include the Ferrari 365 shooting brake and Reliant Scimitar GTE. Princess Anne had a few of those you know! There were several shooting brakes from time to time but they weren’t that popular and then shooting brakes were off the scene for quite a while.

But this year, Ferrari resurrected the shooting brake in the form of FF. A controversial but in my opinion successful move by Ferrari to create a car you can take four people and lots of luggage to the Alps on holiday very quickly and in style. Genius idea!

Since the FF I have seen that Ferrari might have started a trend here. Fisker introduced a gorgeous shooting brake version of the already stunning Karma called the Surf, a coach builder called Carrozzeria Touring made a one off shooting brake version of the Bentley Continental called the Flying Star and, as I mentioned at the beginning, Mercedes will soon release a CLS shooting brake.

Will they be successful? Well I certainly think so. I am a bit sick of boring yet practical estate cars. They are very good at their purpose of course but they’re not the kind of cars I would have as a bedroom poster. These recent shooting brakes though deserve to have a place on my bedroom wall.

Sales of luxury cars are increasingly greatly, and that is never more evident than at Rolls-Royce. With the ultra-expensive Phantom being the only model in in the lineup, the BMW 7-Series-based Ghost was introduced in order to increase sales. As can be expected, it is less expensive or in Rolls-Royce-speak more “accessible.

Volkswagen-owned Bentley succeeded brilliantly in adding new models – the Continental lineup has been a huge success in growing sales for the brand. The same thing looks to be happening at Rolls-Royce with the Ghost – for 2010 Rolls-Royce is set to double its output over 2009.

Expect the final tally to come in at around 2,500 units for the year, with profitability way up. With a solid success in the Ghost, Rolls-Royce isn’t finished with its expansion, looking to increase growth further according to Inside Line.

More variants are on the way to continue the momentum. The Ghost lineup looks to grown into a into a full range of models that include a coupe, convertible and even a long-wheel base version.

Long-wheel base models add length and space to the rear passengers and sell especially well in emerging markets like China and India. Coupe and convertible models help to add appeal and enhance profitability further.

With previous comments about an electric Rolls, there are reports that Rolls-Royce is looking to project a greener image in the future. Rolls-Royce Chief Executive Officer Torsten Muller-Otvos, says that “We will evaluate alternative propulsion next year [2011]….we want to find out what our customers expect.”

Nothing too hasty is being planned for a brand known for its dignified and timeless style. An electric Rolls-Royce seems like a good bet for the future though, as it fits in with the brand’s core traits of refinement and quietness.

However, some customers choose to take things far further to make outrageous statements. Mansory is one such company that has been happy to oblige the tasteless. Remember the Mansory Rolls-Royce Ghost?

You’d probably rather not. However, the company is seeking to offer a toned down offering, dubbed White Ghost.

With a hint of sarcasm, we’d have to say that we think the Rolls-Royce Ghost is pretty good as it stands.

However, there is always those who like to try to improve on near-perfection. In that regard, as far as the exterior, the White Ghost comes far closer than anything Mansory has tried with the Ghost.

The changes are pretty subtle on the exterior, geared to provide a more sporty experience. As its name implies, the car is in a unique white color.

There is a rear spoiler and apron, side skirts, vertical air outlets on the front fender and additional LED daytime running lights.

The wheels are diamond-polished and are 22 inches in diameter, and are equipped with Dunlop SP SportMaxx high-performance tires. While the exterior fares well, the interior doesn’t escape the Mansory treatment.

While the the interior of this car is better than the other Mansory Silver Ghost, it still manages to look worse than the standard car in our opinion. That wood and too much bold color ruins the interior look. Thanks, but we’ll pass.

More meaningful upgrades center around the engine, which gets a horsepower upgrade from about 563 horsepower to 629 horsepower, and a torque upgrade of 60 pound-feet to 634 total.

This shaves 0.4 seconds off the 0-62 mph time, sprinting to that mark in just 4.5 seconds. It also offers a higher top speed of 180 mph. Only three examples of the White Ghost Limited are to be made. At an insane added price of €119,800 ($152,407 U.S over the standard car, we can see why!

They even made sure in the press release to never refer to to the Mulsanne as a “replacement” for the Arnage.  Now, Bentley has released official details on the super-sedan for its home market of the United Kingdom.

The Mulsanne is a very impressive new Bentley model, being the first all-new flagship exclusive to Bentley (as in, not shared with Rolls-Royce) in a long time.  It seems as if the market agrees: Stuart McCullough, Member of the Board for Sales & Marketing at Bentley says that “Even at this very early stage, the expression of interest we’ve received easily exceeds our 2010 production targets.”

Over 1,000 private previews of the vehicle have been conducted for potential customers in the UK, Europe and in seven metropolitan markets in the United States.

The Mulsanne is set to go on sale in Summer 2010, starting at a price of £220,000 GBP (about $365K USD at current exchange rates)including taxes and and destination charges.

As expected, there is a ton of personalization options that will help to ensure no two Mulsannes need be exactly alike: 114 paint colors, 21 carpet colors, nine wood types and 24 different interior leather options. Mulsanne production will start production in the second quarter of 2010.

Chief Executive Officer Tom Purves has commented on the possibility of an all-electric Rolls-Royce – and a Phantom has even been spotted with General Motors Hybrid badges (probably a joke).

The Ghost is the brand’s newest model, and is projected to more than double Rolls-Royce’s brand volume. Given the increased amount of sales that Rolls-Royce wants to attract, Autocar says that a Ghost Hybrid is in the works.

It isn’t like producing it will be much of a stretch developmentally – the Ghost shares a platform and some components with the BMW 7-Series. BMW recently introduced a hybrid model 7-series model, the ActiveHybrid 7.

It will be a mild hybrid system, meaning that the Ghost’s 6.2-liter V12 engine will be assisted by the electric motor – with no electric-only propulsion.There would also be a start/stop system and the Ghost’s 20kW electric motor would be responsible for starting the engine in place of an alternator.

Unlike other brands, hybrid technology (and electric propulsion in general) is completely in keeping with Rolls-Royce’s goals of quiet power. The hybrid system on the Ghost Hybrid should offer about 15 percent better fuel economy in comparison with the standard car.

When those cars just aren’t good enough, upscale German armor company Mutec is happy to oblige. They’re aiming to demonstrate their safety prowess on one of the world’s most expensive and exclusive sedans -- the Rolls-Royce Phantom.

When it comes to explosions and seeing things destroyed, the thinking is -- the  more outrageous, the better. Things like this are always interesting, however I don’t really enjoy such expensive machinery being destroyed.

It’s safe (no pun intended) to say then that they are trying to make a statement. Rolls-Royce fans, look away! If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video has got to be a million!

Rolls-Royce CEO Tom Purves has talked about the subject, saying: “Many of our customers do small mileages exclusively in the city….for these customers, an electric Rolls-Royce would be ideal…..we stand for unmatched refinement and you can’t get a quieter and less intrusive engine than a well engineered electric motor…..we also stand for strong and instant torque – and an electric motor delivers maximum torque instantly. The ‘waftability’ would be fantastic.”

Sounds like a pretty strong endorsement to me. Meanwhile, Auto Express is saying that a Rolls-Royce spokesman confirmed, while speaking to the press, that an electric Phantom is something that’s under consideration. The spokesman added that the weight of a lithium-ion battery pack wouldn’t be a problem for such a heavy car with a V12 engine like the Phantom.

The characteristics for an electric Phantom would certainly be fitting with Rolls-Royce’s goals in a vehicle, and I could definitely see there being a market for one. However, I think a better plan of action would be a range-extended electric Phantom that would enable longer journeys as well.