This was the third year in row that my friends and I made our way to the Santa Monica Mountains to enjoy some spirited driving on the twisty roads there. We started out at “The Commons” in Woodland Hills where we crashed the meeting place of vintagemotoring.net. They are a group of old car nuts that also meet up for drives in the mountains on New Years Day. Though we’ve never driven along with them, we’re pretty sure they don’t have as much fun as we do on the roads. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more) We do enjoy checking out there cars with a fresh coffee before we head out.

This years run had two new attendees. Dave brought his Lotus Elise and Marcelo drove Robert’s BMW 2002. They both throughly enjoyed the day.

The canyons were a blast and enjoyed by all. We were slowed on Stunt Road by a pick up truck, But we made up for it on Yerba Buena Road. Yerba Buena is great because it’s constantly twisting. The road surface is very rough, and it often carries a fair amount of debris, but it’s a blast to drive.

Unfortunate for me I didn’t plan the drive well enough to make it to the Reel Inn for lunch with everybody. That’s normally my favorite part of the trip. Being the lead car for the day I could have made this happen. But, that’s a notion that didn’t occur to me until it was too late. Still, it was a great day judging by all the positive comments in the email thread that followed the event.

Here’s our route, and a few pictures from the day

New Years day 2011. Met up with friends in Malibu at 9:00 am on one of the coldest days of the year for a drive in the Santa Monica Mountains. It warmed up quickly due to the proximity of the ocean and it turned into a perfectly nice day. Below was our route. Click where it says “view full route” and you’ll see some photos and more information.

We had a bit of a scare when Ken’s oil filler cap went missing from his recently purchased 1964 Lotus Elan. After trying some McGiver magic we headed back down the road in hopes of spotting the missing cap. This was successful and soon Ken was back in business. Though I don’t envy him the task of making his engine compartment all nice again.

Lots of fellow car enthusiasts were in the canyons enjoying the day and no doubt avoiding football on TV. We had a great lunch at the Reel Inn in Malibu, then it was my chance to take another run across the mountains while my friends headed south. Once I made it back to the Valley and traveled east towards lower elevations I found some of the coldest air I’d felt all day. The San Fernando Valley was apparently a big pool of cold air.

We were awoken at 5:00 am (2:00 am Los Angeles) sharp by the sun rising, and shining directly into our hotel room window. We got cleaned up and made our way to the track to pick up our tickets before the the will call trailer even opened. Walking like Zombies we were in our seats by 8:30 am. (5:30 back home).

When I purchased the tickets I didn’t know exactly where our seats would be in the grandstand, only which grandstand. Turns out they’re not the most perfect seats, but they could certainly be much worse.




We watched some Ferrari 430s practicing for a “gentleman’s race” to come. Then it was an F1 practice session, followed by a group of F1 cars that spanned several years of F1 racing. We ate lunch at the track and walked around until the next practice session. We caught glimpses of the track from time to time. Mostly we could enjoyed the sounds of 18,000 rpm motors pumping out 700+ H.P.
Were back in the room now tacking a break before possibly heading back out. Rob just rolled over into what looks like a nap, so who knows for sure.

So far Montreal is really nice place. The people are great. it’s clean and green and seems like it would be fine place to call home. Expect perhaps for the winters.
Not much was accomplished in the picture department today. Okay Rob’s asleep, looks like John’s going to follow him.

This post is nothing more than an excuse to put something fresh up. I recently processed a few shots I took with the LX3 at the Cars and Coffee show in Irvine. I thought they looked nice and so I decided to share. In this group of shots are some of my favorite cars.

Number one is the Austin Healey 3000. There are a few models of this car, and I don’t really know the differences between them all. I’ve always known they were way out of my price range. I remember riding in one on a summer evening in the late seventies. The sound and acceleration were was sublime. Examples like these I believe fetch between $50K – $80K.


Also seen that day was a 1969 911S Targa. I used to own a 1973 911T. The interior of this car is very similar to my car. My car’s engine sounded like it was running at 2000 + rpm when it was idling. Something akin to a sewing machine on steroids. Tight smooth precision. It was plenty quick for it time with only about 150 bhp. It was an excellent touring car. I drove it to the Grand Canyon and to Phoenix many times. I could accelerate from 65 to 95 with such ease.


My dad had a 1961 Mercedes 190SL. I learned to drive a stick in that car. Always a favorite. There’s always at least one or two fine examples at each show I go to. Also common now at the shows are 300SL Gullwings. Recently at Supercar Sunday in Woodland Hills there were three Gullwings.

This Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1600, has some kind of ridiculously low mileage. It has it’s original upholstery and paint. This Isn’t the sportiest looking car, but I wouldn’t throw it out of the garage.
One of these days I’ll get something. I found myself explaining to my wife this weekend about how all my car friends each have between 2-4 old cars each. Somewhere there’s an old car with my name on it.

Click on any of the photos to go to a gallery of all the cars I saw that day.

Left the house early to check out the new home of the Supercar Sunday meet in Woodland Hills. It was a lot bigger than I’d expected. For a ridiculously cold morning there was quite a turn out.

There were three Mercedes 300 Gullwings, a Ferrari F40 and this Porsche Carrera GT. Tesla was there with 4 cars and a few salesmen. Lotus Elise/Exiges were everywhere. A great morning for motoring and sightseeing.

I think it’s great how guys with half million dollar cars will get out of the house early on Sunday to share their rides with the masses.

Click the photo for more pictures

Well, It’s officially a tradition. That is if doing something twice, and speaking of doing it again next year can be said to establish a tradition.
John, Rob, Ken, Brian and myself met up in Malibu for a day of canyon driving and some quality standing around visiting. After driving Yerba Buena road for the first time, we all agreed it was a must do on our next trip. Lunch was at the Reel Inn in Malibu and was delicious as usual.

Here’s a link to our route through the canyons. You can see from the data there, where we stopped and see our elevation as we traveled.

Ken's Cortina as a late 70's magazine ad.

Here’s a link to a gallery of the day. There are POV videos of driving up the canyon roads and shots of many of the sites we saw that day. It sure beat watching parades and football. And judging by all the other car affectionados on the road that day, we weren’t the only ones to feel that way.

What’s more fun than going shopping on Black Friday? Just about anything, but for myself and some old friends we took a leisurely drive in the Santa Monica mountains. My friends are all fortunate to have vintage rides from the 60’s and 70’s. I had to make due with my modern car.
We met up with a vintage car club in a parking lot in Malibu at 9:00 am, check out their rides and then headed out on our own.

Here’s montage of clips from the day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the route we followed. It’s pretty much the same route we took our previous outing. Next trip out (probably New Years) we’ll mix it up a bit with some new roads.

Thanksgiving Canyon Run ‘09

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Treffen, is German for “to meet up” or “meet”. This VW meet in Anaheim, CA is in its 3rd year. Featuring cars from 1957 and prior, it’s a very nice collection of VWs, all over 50 years old. A couple of favorites were the original KDF-Wagons from the Hitler era.

And these very cool convertibles, VW Rometsch Beeskow Cabroilets. They were built on a VW Chassis by a German coach company headed by Rometsch. It’s an aluminum body with suicide doors. VW eventually prohibited the sale of chassis to Rometsch to eliminate the competition. VW then produced the Karmann Ghia.
The brow over the front wheel reminds me very much of the brow over the front wheels of my father’s 190SL Mercedes. Not too surprising since Beeskow designed the 300SL two years after this car.

Shows like this always get me motivated to acquire an old car.

Click on any of these pictures to see them more or less full screen. After the jump, use your arrow keys to advance to pictures from this event.