by John Glynn | Dec 22, 2009 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
2009 was a fairly quiet year in terms of UK and European miles covered in my own cars, so I am delighted to be announcing the first of many classic 911 events in 2010: a Spa Track day in June. We’ve teamed up with our friends at RSR Nurburg to put a twenty-car classic 911 posse together for their track day at the legendary Spa Francorchamps Grand Prix circuit on June 7th.
The plan for UK attendees is to drive out on the Sunday, catch an 11am Chunnel crossing and stop for lunch on the other side. We’ll then drive the 340kms to Spa, which takes about 2 and a half hours at legal speeds. Stay in Spa or thereabouts overnight, then arrive at the circuit the next morning for a track walk at 8am. The driving starts at about 9.15.
The cost for this open pit lane day is 300 euros, which is about £260. It’s at least £100 cheaper than a day later in the month when you factor in track cost (even with discounts on the late one) and higher crossing prices. The train is £60 but I have enquired about a group rate so may be cheaper. We are only staying one night, so it is one day off work and one night’s hotel. I am aiming to be on an 8.30/9pm train so easily home by midnight.
I have also invited my R Gruppe brothers from the Netherlands, so I hope to be packed out with hot early 911s on the day. Those guys will come down from home on the Monday morning, as it’s only 140 kms for some of them – a handy day out!
Three hours into the process, I think I am about half way towards hitting my 20 car target now, so if you have an early car and are keen to get involved, email me and let’s sort it out. Everyone should do Spa at least once and this is too good a chance to miss.
Current Spa noise limit is 105dB, which should get us all in no problems, but bear it in mind!
by John Glynn | Oct 16, 2009 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
Sunday had been all about enjoying the cream of US muscle car action, so Monday was back to Stuttgart’s finest. We wanted to get down town and see what was going on, plus I had some bits to find for the Varmint, so after a quick liaison with the following day’s shoot subject, we downloaded directions for the famous Porsche parts specialists at EASY San Francisco (European Auto Salvage Yard) and headed towards Emeryville.
I’d be lying if I said that we got there first time – we never get there first time. Put both of us in one method of transportation together and it is guaranteed to go tits up. Just check our flight history: 3 flights together and all either cancelled or delayed. So it was a roundabout trip with many laughs, but we arrived in the end. Took some great pics en route also: the shot of a battered-to-near-death Alfa Spider, scorching across the Bay Bridge with the SF skyline in the background, was one of the best ‘Go USA’ shots Jamie got all trip.
We arrived at EASY and pulled up behind a well-worn orange 914. Looked good to me in that CA way that the Varmint appeals: honest, done its fair share of work, now just getting driven hard for fun and loving it. We walked in and were greeted by the orange car’s owner, Rich Breazeale, son of owner Jim. A good chat ensued with Rich, and John, who is on the tools there. Jim was away in Maui, which was a shame as I had a great line to use on him: “Hey, I love what you’ve done with the place, Jim.” OK not great, but I would have laughed regardless. They didn’t have what I was looking for, but they let us have an interesting wander, and we spoke about how business was doing.
While we were there, two guys came in trying to sell cars/find buyers. One was a guy with a shoddy 944 Turbo on 19s that swore he had a trick top end on his car, and Cosworth pistons (stick-on Cossie badge near the VIN plate). He took some abuse from a regular, while the rest of us were quite nice to him in that “we’re way too nice for you, sod off you maniac” kind of way. Made no difference.
The other guy was a nice bloke with a clean 3.2 Carrera – a Cali car all its life. The car was not bad, and had a G50. It was painted in some Special Wishes custom colour that looked like Penske Blue, but was identified as Doom Blue when the guy started talking. How he was struggling to get $15K for this car was initially beyond me, as he’d advertised it “everywhere”, but I guessed he must have had fairly dull phone patter, as the car sold itself to me while I was standing there.
It was way past lunchtime, so we said our goodbyes and shot around to Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe. This is owned by Mike Dirnt of Green Day – felt cool eating at the bar in a bona fide rock joint. The food was OK, not amazing but it was great to get a picture of Varmint outside. Seemed like a good omen. I had a few other SF errands to do that didn’t quite come off, so we avoided failure by heading up to the mall at Dublin to get our hostess a present.
We took a wrong turn leaving the place, then swung a U- turn, flew towards an unseen stop sign, locked the fronts at the last minute and sailed right through with huge screeching and tyre smoke filling the air. Spotting a cop about 200 metres further down, we made ourselves scarce using an iPhone escape route, all at the 30 speed limit, and managed to escape without a tug. Happy days – we were delirious laughing about that one.
by John Glynn | Oct 14, 2009 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
I had been talking to Phil Bell at Classic Cars about doing something for the magazine, and making suggestions regarding feature cars. A mate of ours over there is big into MoPar (short for Motor Parts, and all to do with big old Chrysler-built muscle cars) so I had flown some pics past Phil’s window. He was looking for a needle in a haystack: a rare groove muscle machine. Eventually my buddy Alex found it: a low mile, 2-owner Hemi ‘Cuda.
The Hemi is a legendary engine, and that motor in a Barracuda was seriously hard core. Phil loved the pitch, so we set up a shoot and met the owner one Sunday morning in the hills above San Ramon. I heard the V8s rumble while they were still a couple of hundred feet below. Suddenly the Hemi was here and it had brought a friend: another Hemi, but a Road Runner. They were absolutely jaw-dropping; Alex had struck gold!
I love Road Runners. They are plain and simple bits of kit that make a huge noise and an even bigger statement. “You don’t like big cars? Too bad!” says a Road Runner. One flick of the gas pedal is a big injection of space between it and whoever is behind. The ‘Cuda however is a whole ‘nuther thing. It is mean and takes no prisoners. It is grand theft auto, gun-in-the-glovebox stuff. The Hemi ‘Cuda is is the archetypal automotive villain.
Our Hemi owner was the nicest guy in history. I was so pleased about the story that went with this car. He had put heart and soul into achieving a factory restoration rather than a candy-assed, chrome-splurged show job. This car retained all of its manufacturing ‘defects’ for authenticity. All the nitty-gritty details had been meticulously photographed before disassembly and put back exactly as they had come off: paint splashes on the distributor base, unpainted screws under the hood, tiny differences in the door gaps side to side. Guys like this operate in a different stratosphere to the rest of us.
After the shoot, we all went out for lunch at some Mexican place that wasn’t up to much. Even though I am fairly new to Mexican I know bad stuff, and this was very boring food. Beware of Danville Mexicans that flatter to deceive! We went our separate ways afterwards, but vowed to hook up again next time we are over. It was an honour to spend time with the owner and his cars, especially in slightly cooler weather, but still with oodles of Cali sunshine to make the Plum Crazy colour really fly.
Can you believe that this is a regular working guy and yet he has 4 fully-restored Mopars in his garage and one more on the way? The Hemi is probably a half-million dollar car and none of the rest are that much cheaper. I know it’s not about the money – we didn’t even mention it on the shoot – but still, it goes to show what one guy can do when he really puts his mind to it. As we say in California: awesome!
by John Glynn | Oct 12, 2009 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars, Road Trips
It was Saturday. We were headed back to Sears Point for the CSRG races and perhaps a feature shoot if we found the right car. First things first: coffee. We followed John Gray up 680 to Peets in Pleasant Hill, and met up with Mr Bob Tilton.
Suitably re-caffeined, we fuelled up around the corner (my first time sticking fuel in the SC) and headed north. Our three-car convoy to the track was good fun. There we said hello to Cary Noel, a fellow Grupper who owns a super Silver and Blue Carrera RS rep. The weather was glorious but that is one unmercifully hot sun, so sunscreen was the order of the day. I use factor 50+: translucent-skinned Irish people are always better off playing it very safe! 40 degree heat certainly takes it out of a body.
We had our wristband press photo passes so could go wherever. We did some paddock shots just in case we decided to sell an events piece to Classic Cars magazine (decided not to bother in the end) and I ended up at the pit lane exit, about 6 feet away from Can Am cars doing 150mph+ on the entry to turn 1. Never been so dumbstruck by fear and excitement in my life; I couldn’t quite believe they had let me take pics from there. But then the camera couldn’t cope and I was only slightly better! Here’s a pic (imagine insane amounts of noise and speed):
Back in the paddock, things were really hotting up, with temps soaring way past 40 degrees. We took a load off at John Thornton’s racebox, chatted with John, Fuchs-meister Harvey Weidman and Gray for a while before he and Tilton could stand it no more and shot off for lunch at an air-conditioned pizza shack.
Sears Point Porsche
We stayed for the wicked BBQ, before deciding to try and nail some pics of John T’s very groovy Emory-built 912 racer. We gave it our best, but had left some gear in the Martimobile from the day before, and John had to go get ready to race, so we left it for another day. It’s a great car though, and was worth the effort to get the few shots Jamie did.
Lesson learnt number three: Empty all gear into the works van once back at base camp.
While Jamie went to get some tracking shots up at the top of the circuit, I headed for the grandstand to watched some racing. I came down after the Jags had finished – just before I started to melt. Sadly, one of J’s lenses had not been so lucky.
Expanded by the unmerciful heat, it had taken a minor bump while mounted to the camera body and pulled the screws out of the mount, breaking its electrical contact ring. Hard to believe, but there we were: down one lens and fading fast. We decide to say our goodbyes, head for the ranch and try a few things to re-equip ourselves for our Mopar shoot the following day. Varmint had been sitting in the sun all day so was nicely warmed up…
