(FORTUNE Magazine) – La-La Land has always thrived on excess, but this past June, Los Angeles outdid even its fabulous self by hosting a world-class weeklong celebration in honor of its second-favorite lust object, the automobile. For the year 2000, the fledgling California Classic combined the spirit of the state's two other big collector-car blowouts, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and the California Mille Miglia--and then did them a few better. It all started with a rally, which took off from Beverly Hills' chichi Rodeo Drive. For the next four days, 40 rare cars of all ages careened around 700 miles of coastline and back roads, returning to town in time for a gala at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Over the final three days another museum opened, the swish Nethercutt (with, among many other things, an extraordinary hood ornament collection); Christie's held a vintage-car auction; and DaimlerChrysler, a major sponsor, threw parties with lots of ice-cold martinis. On Sunday the whole shebang ended dramatically with the Concours on Rodeo, where 60 other significant and magnificent cars joined the rally survivors to represent a century's worth of best-of-class vehicles, one from each of the past hundred years. In honor of such expensive machines, the entire street was carpeted. If you peered through the thick crowds, you'd see such mind-twisting sights as a 1904 Prunel back to back with a 1994 Lotus S4.

Yet the core of the California Classic is the rally: There is something noble--and potentially painfully expensive--about putting Pebble Beach-quality cars through their paces, but here they are, eating up hundreds of miles of roads--most at, ahem, blurring speeds. (While the event isn't technically scored or timed, you'd never know it from the road behavior exhibited.)

The guest list is as impressive as the sheet metal, from car-building legend Carroll Shelby and Grand Prix legend Dan Gurney to some of the most prominent collectors in the country. Another American brand name is present, high-performance guru Reeves Callaway, who offers me the driver's seat in his 460-horsepower Callaway C12 (the fact that he's my fiance has absolutely nothing to do with the honor, I assure you). The itinerary goes from Beverly Hills to Big Sur and back again, with catered feasts at jaw-droppingly lavish collectors' homes along the way. The evenings don't suck either: The Inn at Morrow Bay, Big Sur's Ventana, and Santa Barbara's Biltmore.

It would be pretty easy for the rest of the world to view such a rally as merely a rich man's way to play. On a few obvious levels, of course, it is. But the more important truth is that such an event gives the most passionate guardians of automotive history the opportunity to exercise their machines, retell their stories, and keep alive some nearly lost arts. On the road that equates to gritty adventure in the form of tough gearboxes, barely-there brakes, flat tires, and problematic cooling systems; it is a celebration of dirty hands. After a day in a windshieldless 1939 Talbot (which took pole position at Le Mans that year), Dan Gurney's wife, Evi, exclaims, "Enjoy the scenery? Are you kidding? I am trying to survive!" At one twisty point on Highway 1, I get passed by a 1926 boat-tail Bentley (and I am pushing it). One driving duo is so tired, they don't even bother to close their hotel room door at Morrow Bay when they arrive, but simply pass out, still dressed, before dinner.

One highlight: watching Carroll Shelby drive L.A. car collector Bruce Meyer's 1965 Mustang Shelby 350GT. "This thing needs better brakes!" says Shelby, emerging from his own handiwork. "Don't touch it!" warns Meyer. "That's the difference between the collectors and the builders--the builders want to keep improving, but the collectors want to preserve everything." Another highlight: driving with Dan Gurney in a lovely open-top Jaguar one afternoon (Gurney, too, had had enough of the demanding Talbot and switched cars). With one hand holding his cap and the other steering smoothly, Gurney (the man who started the tradition of victoriously spraying Champagne on the crowd after winning at Le Mans in '67) feeds me stories about racing, running a CART team, and watching his son compete--until we realize the Jag's water temperature is off the gauge. We slow down, steam a little, and make it to the next stop for water.

A nonautomotive highlight: On the second day we make a lunch stop in Big Sur at a house belonging to rally participant and management compensation consultant Peter Mullin. Perched on the rocks just above the frothing water, with no other house in sight, the light- and wood-filled structure is part treehouse, part boat, part end-of-the-earth altar. For a moment, the millions of dollars' worth of cars parked outside are forgotten.

On the final day, windburned, sunburned, and well fed, we motor to our final stop: the Malibu retreat of the event's organizers, Jim and Tonya Hull. A block away, Eliot Dolin, a Ferrari F355 owner with whom I've traded rides, gets a speeding ticket in the C12. The officer handing out the fine, however, is so impressed by the eyeful around him that he lets Dolin go without providing a registration.

By Sunday morning, as all the rally cars line up at the Concours on Rodeo, the cars that haven't participated in the road event seem too clean and unused. I stroll through the crowds with Bruce Lustman, a way-early-retired U.S. Surgical exec; his soulfully beautiful pale-yellow 1967 Ferrari 275 NART Spyder (which starred in the original Thomas Crown Affair) is my favorite rally car. As we admire the Bugattis, the Stutzes, and a DeLorean, Lustman points out, "Cars are the great equalizers. Whether you own one Camaro and spend all your time tinkering with it or you're running a whole Formula 1 race team, the passion is the same." Financial discrepancies aside, he's right, of course: Car love is universal. As if to prove the point, a young guy rolls down the window of his old Honda, points to "my" C12 and yells, "That's the freshest car on earth right now!"

Long live Southern California--and internal combustion.

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