by John Glynn | Jun 5, 2011 | Classic Porsche Blog
Anyone following the R Gruppe Europe Blog will have read last week’s post about the Carrera PanEuropeana, a quick blast the R Gruppe Europe boys took down to Germany last weekend. Just had a few more pics through from Daan, so I thought I would share on here.
The basic plan was leave Amsterdam and meet on the border early Friday morning. Drive through Belgium into Germany, then do a few laps of the Nurburgring and stay somewhere close for a couple of nights.
Saturday was all about B-road driving in the mountains around the circuit, with some spectating in the afternoon. Turns out the 911 R hybrid was racing and winning that day.
Sunday was a quick blast to Spa to watch the tail end of the racing there, before heading home to the Netherlands, or Portugal and the USA in the case of Vasco Ricardo and Steven Harris.
Looks like everyone had a good time. The stories I have heard so far suggest the pace was as hot as ever, but only one car casualty emerged and the damage was superficial.
Next R Gruppe Europe event I am likely to attend is the TwinSpark trackday at Spa in October: £249 for a day on track with friends in early 911s. More details on TwinSpark Racing here.
Lots of us booked to come down from the UK already and I’m sure we’ll find more guys from Europe who are keen to be there. The date is October 10th but you can extend to do the 11th also if you fancy it. I’ll be on a plane to California on the 11th, so just the Monday for me!
by John Glynn | May 19, 2011 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
Jamie and I stopped off at West Coast Metric today en route to Los Angeles International, to say hello to legendary VW parts impresario, Lorenzo Pearson.
Lorenzo has a long track record in ‘making it happen’, so meeting the man himself was the perfect sign off to our week in California. Making things happen is what all the best car guys are about out west.
Pearson is also a massive Porsche nut, with some of the most beautiful classic Porsches imaginable in his compact, eclectic, exceptional collection. The 356 and 911 seen here are two of the most impeccably detailed classic Porsche hot rods out there.
Mr Pearson and I spent so much time being rally car fans, I didn’t get the iPhone camera out once, apart from taking a picture for middle daughter Ciara, of a pirate cannonball salvaged by Lorenzo in the West Indies. She’s got the biggest pirate thing in history going on at the minute.
The pics seen here are from the Lost Boys Racing site – with Bugazon (below) taken from Rancho Transaxles. What an AWESOME car!
After WCM, we headed to LAX for our flight to JFK, where it’s now RCD* and I am totally wondering WTF, NYC? Lorenzo said it would be so.
*raining cats and dawgs
by John Glynn | May 15, 2011 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
Back in primary school, our teacher (Mrs Bell) would go around the class at 9 AM, asking us to share interesting things that had happened to us since last time. This round-the-class summary was called ‘Our News”.
After everyone who had a story had told it, Mrs Bell would pick her favourite three items, they’d get a line each and we’d write ‘Our News’ for the day in the bottom half of a copybook. You could then draw a picture at the top, to illustrate your favorite story of the ones that had made it into print.
Not much has changed. I still go around my peers and colleagues in the mornings, get updates from the various classmates, pick the stories I like the most and put them on the blog, with pictures of my choosing, or making.
It’s fun to know that ‘Our News’ would still give me immeasurable pleasure almost forty years later, but there you go; life can be crazy like that. So:
Our News: 15th May 2011
Today is Sunday. It is a sunny day.
The weather last night turned cold and rainy, so John, Hayden, Harvey and Alastair went to the Sports Bar at the Monterey Hyatt, and had a few beers while watching the Brumos Porsche win at Virginia Raceway, after a thrilling wet race and some very close racing.
Yesterday, Jamie and John shot three Porsche 911: two hot rods and a beautiful standard 911S. One was shot at Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove, and the other two were on The Preserve, a privately owned 20,000-acre ranch outside of Carmel.
John and Jamie have been doing their usual sun cream forgetting trick, so John is now pinker than a Barbie car.
(I’m sure that last one was also in ‘Our News’ forty years ago, too.)
by John Glynn | May 13, 2011 | Classic Porsche Blog
I’m in sunny California at the minute and loving every minute of it. Today is being spent with those wonderful people at WEVO in San Carlos, plotting our group assault on this weekend’s R Gruppe Treffen, down in Monterey.
Lined up for Team WEVOs weekend works outing is a great bunch of classic Porsche enthusiasts from all over the US and Europe. R Gruppe started as a California club but its influence now stretches much further afield.
Hayden’s got some great cars here at the minute. In one corner is the GT3-engined 912 we are shooting tomorrow: the car that’s kicked the hot rod goalposts into the stadium car park. In another is the black 911 being built for Burvill Senior. Black with orange leather: properly cool.
Outside are the 993 used as shop delivery bus and the ’67 Aga Blue 912: a 36,000-mile all original car with patina that can’t be beat, including the obligatory baked paint.
Also on site is Hayden’s BMW 2002 Touring, owned since 1990. It’s just had a new twin-choke carb installed under outwardly standard California-legal air filter housing and emissions system. Loads of 2002s around here, including the ‘Golf’ car I got a wave from this morning while I was driving Kenny.
Kenny is a ’72 running a 2.4S engine, Recaro sports seats, one-off WEVO brakes, development suspension, Tall Boy WEVO shifter prototype and enough additional trickness to make a grown Porsche fan weep. I’ve just found a spare hour in the schedule so we are shooting it tomorrow.
Speaking of shooting…
by John Glynn | Oct 25, 2010 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
I just got back from California: my third trip in two years. Before my last visit, I bought a sweet little 1980 Porsche 911 SC Coupe on Craiglist. The car had been owned by the same guy since 1989 and was an honest, rust-free 911.
Sure, the paint had weathered a few storms and the trim had seen better days. But, riding on Fuchs, with an engine rebuilt to Euro specs – new pistons and cylinders and SSIs too – it pulled like a train with a Tornado strapped on top.
I used the SC (christened The Varmint) for ten days and over 2,000 miles. Let me tell you: there is nothing like ripping around sunny California in your very own 911. I went everywhere: across the Golden Gate, along Mulholland Drive and down the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, at sunrise and sunset.
When the trip was finished, I shipped The Varmint home. A friend made me an offer I could have refused, but chose not to. I put the money away for next time.
A few weeks before we were due to leave this time around, I started looking for Varmint Mk 2: something that wouldn’t break the bank, but could transport us in SC comfort for a week, before we sold it on or shipped it home. Shergar would have been easier to find.
In the year or so since buying Varmint, the exchange rate had shifted, the economy had lifted and the number of affordable 911s on offer had drifted away. Between the breakers and the other European speculators, California had been drained of sub-$10k 911s.
My regular trip to Essen earlier in the year had showed there was no letup in the number of 911s finding their way back to Germany from the USA, but California is Porsche nirvana: these cars are everywhere! I couldn’t believe how fast the tap had dried up.
Markets shift and money follows. Economies ebb and flow, and cars like the 911 move around the world. My first 911 lived in 5 countries before I bought it. Of the three I have now, one has been registered in three European countries, another has been though four states and three countries and the third has just left its fifth state/country, en route to the sixth. Pretty busy stuff.
When I first got into 911s, left hand-drive was the cheap option. UK dealers were buying in Stuttgart and selling in Stoke on Trent. I prefer left hand-drive, so it suited me fine, but it wasn’t long before Germany woke up to the UK bargains and took the left-hookers home. The same thing has happened in west coast USA.
Now however, the Euro has slumped to a four-year low against the Dollar, so might the USA begin buying cars back? Ebb and flow is how it goes. In the middle of it all are the shippers: making a living, whichever way the cars sail.
