Most people come to Monterey Car Week to admire automotive history. At Rancho Cielo, students are learning how to preserve it. This year, two recent graduates helped do just that at the 75th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, while current students gained new skills and insight into the classic car restoration industry through other related activities.
On August 12, Rancho Cielo hosted its second Classic Car Education Day, where students heard from top representatives of Pendine (a car collection management service based in England), Frank Dale (a specialty Rolls-Royce and Bentley dealer also based in England) speak about their careers. James Mitchell (founder of Pendine) and Giles Crickmay (director of Frank Dale) opened up about the academic challenges they faced in school, which led them to pursue untraditional paths, bypassing college altogether, yet still build successful careers. Like many students just starting their journeys at Rancho Cielo, Mitchell and Crickmay found their passion in the automotive field, where they’ve since flourished.
The Piston Foundation (a nonprofit organization that supports young car enthusiasts interested in pursuing careers in the collector car industry and new partner to Rancho Cielo) was also proud to join the education day and spend time with students in the classic car program. Foundation President Jeff Mason spoke about the Foundation’s scholarship program and how they help build pathways that grow the next generation of skilled technicians.
“The future of the classic car world depends on having skilled people to preserve, maintain and restore these cars,” Mason said. “We’re proud to support Rancho Cielo students as they take their first steps toward careers in the industry.”
That same day, one of the rarest automobiles in the world—a pre-war 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental—arrived on campus. There, students had the unheard-of opportunity to work alongside master detailers and repair specialists learning how and what was needed to detail and prepare the vehicle to be shown at the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
The Rolls-Royce belongs to Rancho Cielo Board Member Bill Hayward, a businessman and philanthropist who acquired the rare automobile, had it restored to original condition, and entered it in the Concours with Rancho Cielo specifically in mind. Hayward has a history of investing in Rancho Cielo’s students; he previously helped construction students design, build and exhibit a fully sustainable home for the Orange County Sustainability Decathlon in 2023, a competition Rancho Cielo won outright, beating top engineering programs from colleges and universities around the world. He believed a Pebble Beach acceptance would be another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rancho Cielo students, and he was right.
Serendipitously, one of the 1934 Rolls’ former owners was Don Williams, a founding participant in the Concours with whom Rancho Cielo already had a connection: The school’s Classic Car Restoration program became a beneficiary of a fund established in his memory for underserved youth interested in automotive restoration just three years ago.
Rancho Cielo graduates Max Perez and Aaron Correa were chosen to help Hayward to present the Rolls-Royce to judges at the Concours. They learned about the car inside and out, from its history of owners down to why professionals wear thin-soled shoes to better feel how the engine is running.
On the Edge of Disappearing
Across the United States, more than six million classic automobiles remain on the road, but the craftspeople who know how to restore and maintain them are steadily aging out of the profession. That knowledge has traditionally passed from one pair of hands to the next through apprenticeship rather than textbooks, and as those hands retire, an entire body of skill risks disappearing.
Believed to be the nation’s only high school Classic Car Restoration program, Rancho Cielo is working to change that, introducing students, many from communities with limited economic opportunity, to a highly specialized industry while keeping the craft alive.
“The future of the classic-car world depends on having skilled people capable of maintaining and restoring these remarkable automobiles,” said Hayward, a sentiment echoed by industry leaders and Rancho Cielo instructors alike.
During Monterey Car Week, that mission became visible through Rancho Cielo’s Classic Car Education Day. From the industry professionals sharing their personal journeys to help the next generation understand how to they might forge career paths in vintage and collector car restoration to the students themselves working alongside the experts detailing the Rolls-Royce, this transfer of knowledge and techniques has largely existed only inside elite restoration shops and, even then, to the select few who find the unique chance to work in them.
It’s a story set against a backdrop of extraordinary wealth and automotive history, but at its heart, it’s a story about opportunity. In a place known for celebrating the world’s finest collector cars, a group of high school students is not simply learning how to polish chrome—they are practicing the art of a disappearing craft. It raises a larger question that reaches well beyond automobiles: What happens when an entire generation of skilled tradespeople retires? And who will be ready to take their place?
A Week to Remember
Car Week brought more milestones. On August 13, at the Ferrari Owners Club Northern California Region’s 4th Annual Concours Carmel, which drew over 150 Ferrari owners to Carmel-by-the-Sea and was judged by some of the most renowned experts in the world, Rancho Cielo Classic Car Restoration students shadowed those experts, learning about the judging process and the Ferraris up close. The students then picked their own favorite cars and awarded the owners one-of-a-kind trophies, including student-welded rose sculptures.
Rancho Cielo students and their instructors got to rub elbows with one of the biggest names in the automotive world: Jay Leno. The famed comedian took part in one of the Pebble Beach Concours Forums that was celebrating the living history of the automobile industry. Classic Car restoration student Mario was the first to ask the famed comedian a question, “What’s your favorite car in your private collection?” Leno’s answer was classic Leno: “I can go in the garage, and it’s like every girl you dated in high school. She’s waiting for you and looks the same.” After the forum, the students were able to meet Leno and take their picture with him and the other forum speakers.
The Big Day
The day before the Concours d’Elegance, the Rancho Cielo graduates Perez and Correa took part in the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance, riding alongside Bill Hayward and his family in the 1934 Rolls-Royce along the beautiful 17-mile drive and Monterey coastline. Then came the main event: the 2026 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where the grads stood alongside the automotive masterpiece and helped Hayward present it to the judges on the show field—the opportunity of a lifetime, given that thousands of cars apply to be a part of the Concours and only around 200 are chosen to compete in the renowned competition.
The Phantom II placed third in the Rolls-Royce pre-war class. But the real triumph came when it was awarded the coveted Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy, denoting it the most significant automobile of British origin in the Concours d’Elegance.
The car is remarkable. The history behind it is more so. But for these two young men from Rancho Cielo, seeing their work celebrated on one of the world’s grandest automotive stages is a moment the school will remember for the rest of their lives. It is exactly what Rancho Cielo strives to offer every student: hope, purpose and the opportunity to build real-world skills they can apply in a career, college or both, which they may never have previously imagined for themselves.
