June 2011 Cars & Coffee at duPont REGISTRY

I’m finally getting around to posting last month’s Cars & Coffee event from three weeks back. Things got derailed a bit when, the day after attending this and an Evo meet at S&R Performance (post on that to come), I woke up with a bad case of what my wife thinks was heat exhaustion. No more 2 event weekends without carrying some water.

Anyways, on this outing to Cars & Coffee, I arrived 20 minutes later than last time (made a wrong turn and had to go over the bridge twice), and had to park outside the event, more over towards the exotics. As a result, this time I’ve got many more photos of the high end rides for you to see after the jump.

Disclaimer: I’m only posting the very best photos on the blog. If you’d like to view the whole set, please proceed to my Flickr set of this event. All photos are uploaded at a desktop-friendly 1920 pixels in width. This set is by far the most artistic so far. I’ve incorporated some tilt shift and vignette in these that I think really pushed them further. Please feel free, no… encouraged to comment here or on the Flickr pages.

At every car meet, there’s at least one car that seems to outshine everything else there. In this case, it was this gorgeous and rare Saleen S7 Twin Turbo, in metallic orange, America’s supercar. For those that don’t know, Saleen is a company created by former racecar driver Steve Saleen that, until the creation of the S7, was solely known for upgrading Ford’s Mustang in the aftermarket. The S7 was their first foray into designing an entire car on their own, and the Twin Turbo was the next evolutionary step of that.

Despite it typically being somewhat of an under-appreciated supercar, not having the prancing horse on it’s fenders or the wild angles of a Lambo, and being somewhat overlooked by non-enthusiasts, this particular S7 was really the star of the show. I felt lucky to get the photo that you see up at the top, because all of the shots of the side had to later be stitched together  in Photoshop, in order to produce shots without people standing in front of the car.

It really was a beautiful and extremely long car. With that color and that shape, I’d imagine anywhere you’d drive this, it would be an event in itself.

This oh-so-well-placed rock crawler “Jeepeto” Jeep Scrambler was also pretty popular. From what I could find on pirate4x4.com, this Jeep has the following, and I quote:

• tube chassis 130″ wheelbase
• 404 mogs 22″ clearance between axle and ground
• 49″ iroks
• 360 Mopar crate engine 400hp
• propane powered (gotpropane.com)
• NV4500 dodge 27″ clearance between belly pan and ground
• Stak monstar box 3 spd
• POS front and rear steering dbl pump
• high angle drive line shafts
• king coilover 2.5″ 16″ travel
• onboard welder
• 4 winches 1 front 1 rear and 2 for axles
• 12 volt guy panels
• 6,455 lbs

The builders described it in the build thread, basically as having “a functioning windshield(with wipers) and both full and half doors..the idea is to get all the benefits of a tube chassis and still keep most of the comforts of a full bodied jeep.. this rig will even be able to take a stock scrambler soft top.” I honestly don’t follow rock crawling, but this seemed like a pretty impressive build. It even had a clear hood, so you could see the shock reservoirs and everything. I’ve always had a thing for Jeeps, since my dad had a CJ-7 back in the day that I used to love riding in.

Next up, I ran across this pretty little Ferrari 308 GTSi. If you’re a child of the 80’s, you’ll remember 308’s from their Magnum PI fame. The owner of this particular 308 was a little hesitant about me shooting it until he found out I was shooting for the blog.

He was very informative about how the late 70’s and early 80’s Ferrari’s were named. The 308 being named so because of it having an engine the size of 3.0 liters with 8 cylinders, hence “308.” This is one of the few Ferrari’s that can be considered somewhat affordable these days, going for the upper $20k to lower $30k price range, granted you can still keep up with the cost of maintenance. It won’t blow the doors off of a modern Camry these days or be anywhere near as comfortable, but god dang, you’ll look good in it.

360 Modena

You might think that goes for all Ferrari’s, but you’d be wrong. If you go back to the 70’s, you’ll find some real uggo’s. There’s even the occasional one these days that suffers from a case of the angles. Oddly enough, when everyone was driving in, I actually caught such a creature, the current Ferrari California, at just the right angle.

Most of the time when I see these, I think “good god, what were they thinking?” because, this car is kind of hideous with the top up. But this one day, in the golden hour of the morning, with the sun lighting it’s face in just such a way, I saw it’s beauty… and then it turned and was back to being kind of ugly/kind of pretty again.

I’m pretty certain I’d seen this Ferrari F430 Scuderia Spider 16M last time, when I shot here in March, but I’d never really gotten it when the sun was just at the right angle, as it was on this morning. Ferrari built these to commemorate their 16th victory in the Formula 1 Constructor’s World Championship in 2008 in a limited number of only 499.

That picturesque carbon airboxed V8 back there packs a 500hp punch.

Here’s one where you can see the badge. This truly is engine porn. Check the Flickr set, because there’s another from an even lower angle. It just makes your mouth water.

Speaking of engine porn, this 360 Challenge Stradale was packing a titanium aftermarket exhaust.

Capristo Exhaust

Here’s a closer look at it.

It’s hard to believe, but these were both made by the VAG.

I was very happy to get some more pics of the Lamborghini’s this time. Forza 3, of all things, and the unveiling of the Sesto Elemento concept, combined to reignite my childhood interest in Lamborghini. An emphasis on power to weight ratio? You’ve got my attention.

After spending more time around these bulls this year than I ever would have thought in my previous 29 years, I’m really wanting to get behind the wheel of one of these beasts. I know unless I hit the lottery one day, I’ll likely never own anything like this, but it would be so amazing to drive one at least once.

While I was around the Italian rides, I had my first spotting of the new Fiat 500, a 500C (cabrio) in this case. It was nice to finally see one in the flesh. I might consider owning one of these, if they eventually bring the Abarth version over, as they’ve claimed. I saw another one, a hard top, this past week in old St Augustine. I liked the hard top better. I’ll be posting that up in the next few days.

I spotted a couple of nice old Porsche 930’s as well, a regular 911, but in the very Rauh Welt shade of flat black, and a rare slant nose model as well.

Several sources claim that fewer than a thousand of these Flachbau (slant nose) models were produced.

Whether you’re a fan of the slant nose or not, you have to respect that the owner likely paid a 60% premium for it, and then actually used it enough for there to be track damage on the front end! Major jalop points for going against the exotic car flow and actually using a car for what it was built for!

There was also a nice mix of more contemporary GT3-RS’s and classic Speedster.

Gotta show some love for the clown shoe!

Not to mention the classic BMW 2002

This Elise is more the type of “emphasis on power to weight” car that I might someday be able to afford, assuming the depreciation doesn’t level out. *crosses fingers* That’s likely up to Lotus CEO Dany Bahar and whether he can help Lotus continue to make the kind of raw driver’s cars as Lotus has always been known for, or if it becomes a hollow shell of it’s former self, driving up the price for these older, truer, more Chapman-inspired Loti. I’m obviously hoping for the first scenario.

A couple of the lovable old British Leyland Mini’s also made an appearance.

Last, but not least, was  a multitude of new and old American bruisers and Japanese highway cruisers.

Here, the wonderful C3 Vette that I posted about last month. I finally got to meet the owner and the owner’s son. Apparently, this thing is not only supercharged, but also nitrous injected.

Chevrolet must have heard that people like myself and another Florida resident (totally separate incident) were getting stuck in the C6 Corvette, in my case a Grand Sport. Not that this is in any way new, but that’s as good a reason as any for Corvette convertibles.

This one was a Callaway supercharged Corvette. Seems like a fun way to lose your hair.

I was really happy with how this photo of a second generation Dodge Viper, this one a GTS, came out. Usually when I shoot them, I seem to catch them at the wrong place in the sun, but the polarizing filter really made this photo work. Like a few of these photos, it’s actually a combination of a few photos Photoshopped together. My polarized filter only covers half the lens, so this is how I work around it until I can get a full coverage one.

A first generation Camaro.

Here’s a Buick Grand National, like the one I saw at Auto Collections in Vegas last year, actually being driven to the event. Imagine that! What a concept!

I got some better photos of the red NSX this time around.

And an AE85 that was converted to AE86 status with a JDM 4AGE from a front wheel drive Toyota, with ITB’s no less! The owner formerly worked for the supposedly now-defunct XAT Racing that 5 or 6 years ago had an S13 running drift demos in Formula D, with a front end conversion to a “Smokey and the Bandit” style black Trans Am. It was pretty awesome. A few years ago, I got to see the front end sitting in their waiting area after the car had been retired. You should Google it. It was a pretty interesting, not to mention unique way to build an S13.

I was pleasantly surprised to see an Evo owner make it out to this one. The Evo scene doesn’t seem to show up at this kind of an event very often. They seem to blow it off as “too early.” I hope that will eventually change, as I’m still a big Evo fan, despite selling my Lancer.

I leave you with this brand new 2011 Godzilla. This week, if all goes as planned I should have a few pics up of the rides I saw this past week in old St. Augustine and a separate post about the Evo meet at S&R Performance, that happened the same day as this Cars & Coffee. Again, please feel encouraged to comment here or on the Flickr pages. Until next time, happy hooning.