Author: Keith Martin

Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 40 years. As a writer, publisher, television commentator and enthusiast, he is constantly on the go, meeting collectors and getting involved in their activities throughout the world. He is the founder and publisher of the monthly Sports Car Market, now in its 37th year. Keith has written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications, has been an emcee for numerous concours, and had his own show, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity. He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrmann Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame, and more. He has served on the board of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar's Award.

Auf Wiedersehen

We filled the tank of our 2004 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG for the first time on July 1, 2020. The odometer read 45,389 miles. We had purchased it from a collector in the Los Angeles area for $22,500. SCM Contributor Philip Richter had urged — no, commanded — me to buy […]

Keith’s Blog: Your $500k Car Collection

We do this exercise every so often. I offer a target and you start throwing darts. We played the original version on an SCM tour bus headed to the vintage Monaco GP. I think our target then was $25,000. Times have changed. Here’s today’s challenge: Tell us your four-car collection […]

Keith’s Blog: BMW E30 vs. Volvo 240

There’s been plenty of discussion about how Bring a Trailer has changed the world of collecting. The simplest example goes back to the early days of SCM. When we wrote about a Ferrari Dino selling at Barrett-Jackson, the magazine was the only place that sale would be covered in any […]

Keith’s Blog: My Lotus Ate Its VIN

SCM Editor-In-Chief Jeff Sabatini recently took our 2006 Lotus Elise in for its every-two-years emission testing. We expected it would be routine, as it powered by a modern (by our standards) Toyota engine. It failed. But not because of emissions issues. On the printout we got from the Oregon Department […]

That Monterey Magic

My relationship with the Monterey Peninsula started in the late 1960s. I was a wrench (that was before the term “technician” came into vogue) on Hilary Luginbuhl’s SCCA F-production Alfa Romeo Giulietta race car, aka Rubber Chicken Racing. There was fierce competition in our class against the factory-backed cars, the […]

Keith’s Blog: Fly or Drive?

This year we made the decision to drive to Monterey from Portland, about 750 miles each way. In previous decades, we had flown to San Jose, CA, picked up a rental car and driven to the peninsula, repeating the process for the trip home. Door to door, it would take […]

Keith’s Blog: Could It Be the Vacuum Line?

My son Bradley’s 1982 Chevrolet Corvette continues to create its own adventures. He spent a weekend at Sauer’s Machine and Racing, a shop in Medford, OR. His grandfather, Dick Ewing, who dragged-raced a C1 Corvette and was known for his ability to work wizardry with nitrous injection, works as a […]

Keith’s Blog: The Drive to Monterey

It’s been 30 years since SCM made our first 2,000-mile roundtrip from Portland to Monterey Car Week. For many years, we drove a van with boxes of magazines strapped to the roof. More recently we have shipped our materials ahead and flown down. However, my son Bradley turned 16 this […]