I am pretty sure those spinners in the middle of each wheel cover is a personal add-on.
Yeah probably.
We’re going up to tour Bruce Canepa’s place in Scotts Valley today. I look forward to capturing many pictures.
Lamborghini Urus with a black matte wrap.
A yellow 1974 facing off with my 2022:
Driving back from a hike on Sunday I went past a sign for a Cruz-In car meet. Saw a few interesting cars on the road but the best was a beautiful white C2 Corvette convertible. No pictures but it looked like this:
I was just looking through my imgur library and noticed I took a picture (and posted it here) last September.
Wow…I’ve driven past that place a bunch of times and never knew it was there. Went up to check it out a couple days ago. It’s a smallish collection (20 or so cars and some motorcycles) but very nice. Definitely worth a stop for car buffs looking for something to do in the area. Did your tour include a visit to the Porsche showroom across the street?
Hi @blondebear, I hope all is well with you and yours.
When you say ‘Porsche showroom across the street’, the quick answer is yes. You’re probably referring to across the street at 4955 Scotts Valley Dr because prominently displayed at that front window is a silver 2000 Carrera GT prototype next to a couple of 911s and 356s. There is some more there, including a McLaren Speedtail with an asking price of $2.85M and a highly modified new Ford Bronco desert racer (a 6th generation, that began in 2021 after 5th gen production ran 1991-1996) on massive 37s.
It sounds like you did not go upstairs or look at the workshop at his main place at 4900 Scotts Valley Dr. In his workshop he currently has at least 5 Porsche 959s in various states of repair / refurbishing. Plus many other cars being serviced or restored (including a 1936 Fiat Topolino and a 1993 Vector Avtech WX-3 prototype). Upstairs at 4900 Scotts Valley Dr there are more exotic cars on display and then also a catwalk that leads you to view the workshop. You may want to go back and go upstairs to look. If you stop in ask to see Ralph Hughes in sales and if he has time he might give you a quick overview of what’s there at 4900, and maybe across the street to 4955. Might be best to reach out in advance: Ralph is at 831-430-9940 and autoSales2@canepa.com. If you do reach out, tell him the Porsche 356 guys sent you. He might not remember my name which you may remember from when we met in San Francisco 2 years ago but he probably knows the name Steve Douglas who coordinated the visit. Feel free to mention Steve.
I did a writeup for the Porsche 356 group and I’ll paste that in italics below. I also took many (many!) photos and am still organizing them — over 300 photos. Unfortunately I learned the hard way that Google Photos does not save an album being drafted — after over halfway through I bumped into some nightly backup and lost my work! I’m still working on that, recovering. Will share that link here when I get it together.
Apologies for the lengthy reply, which now gets longer with my writeup for the 356 group. ‘356CAR’ stands for California Alta Region, the Northern California group —
The 356CAR group toured Bruce Canepa’s show room / museum / workshop on Saturday 19 July and it was an excellent visit! Bruce himself spent quite a bit of time with us, detailing the cars and stories, and even speeding tickets that almost were but where he was able to talk the LEOs out of (see on the map, Molera Road, Castroville CA; a road that’s 3 miles long).
Fun times! We were there some 2 hours, including across the street at his new showroom (4955 Scotts Valley Dr) with even higher end cars, and we learned that a McLaren Speedtail can go for an asking price pushing near $3M. Yikes! I guess when they build a twin turbo 4 litre V8 with an electric motor (hybrid!) that puts out over 1,050 HP, tops out at some 250 MPH, and does 0-300 KPH (186 MPH) in under 13 seconds, it’ll cost a pretty penny.
It can be yours for their asking price of only $2.85M. The California sales tax alone will cost you about a quarter mil. Hey, it’s only money and you can’t take it with you, right? But you gotta have it first — not much of a worry for me.
According to wiki the Speedtail is the 4th edition of McLaren’s Ultimate Series, after the F1 released in 1992 (which was the last road-legal, series-produced sportscar to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans race outright), the P1 first displayed 20 years later in 2012, and the Senna that was unveiled in 2017. Rest in Peace, Ayrton. Some here may remember that the P1 in 2012 was one of the first hybrid supercars, after the Porsche 918 concept of 2010. The P1 was released together with the F150 LaFerrari. Hybrid hyper sports cars, all.
Bruce Canepa showed us many, many cars, including his beloved Porsche 959 SC (for Sport Canepa, no less), along with the other 959s they’re working on, and also the first US road-legal 959 that’s currently in his shop for some work. When asked how many 959s were produced, in a heartbeat Bruce said 292 of them were built. And he’s seen many of those 292 cars.
Bruce also showed us his 1959 356 A coupe, modified with a 2.5L engine and slightly flared rear fenders, and we spent a fair amount of time with that car.
There were some 25-30 of us in attendance, and many of us took pictures. Please post your pics here! I took over 300 photos and am still sorting them. I’ll share mine here shortly.
Thank you to Steve Douglas and all who organized this excellent tour. And thank you to Bruce Canepa and sales director Ralph Hughes for their precious time spent with us. A good time was had by all.
Some of us finished it off with a nice lunch at Laughing Monk Brewing right there in Scotts Valley. And then we drove our 356s home through the nice mountain roads on a beautiful, sunny Northern California day.
I did go to the main building and wandered through the museum and the balcony overlooking the shop. The other building across the street wasn’t open to visitors when I was there. Pretty cool place.
Cool.
The two latest additions to my friends collection are a Dodge Hellcat and absolutely pristine Jaguar E-type V12. The hellcat will eventually go to their house in Portugal where being left hand drive won’t be an issue.
I posted this in the license plate thread (SLVFOX)
Google is telling me it’s a late 60’s, early 70’s 911 or 912 or some variant of them. My question is, what’s the round thing that looks like a door for a gas filler neck. I mean, I know it isn’t, but what is it? I’m not seeing that in other pictures.
ETA, I just noticed a small square tube coming out of the frame just in front of that access panel and figured this had something to do with jacking up the car. That square tube is meant to stick something into for that jack to push up on
That panel appears to be for replacing the torsion bar. Was that such a big problem that made it that easy to access? Unless these things are breaking on a weekly basis, I’m surprised it’s not accessed from under the car, even if it means a lot more work.
Could be a design holdover from its early days as a beetle. The Karmann-Ghia had a similar panel and jack port.
A Rolls Royce, not sure of the model. I don’t think it’s a current lineup. Possibly a Phantom?
A Love’s (truck stop brand) gasoline tanker truck parked in the lot of a non-Love’s truck stop. 
Yesterday I saw a Chrysler 300C with the plate 300C. To this day, any time I see a Chrysler 300, the first thing my brain thinks is ‘I bet he got that car because he thinks it looks like a Rolls Royce’.
And, to be fair, after seeing this special, I did think they looked similar-ish, until one day when I happened to see an actual Rolls Royce.
Not sure where else to put this. In a neighborhood nearby I’ll occasionally see the tractor part of an 18 wheeler hooked up to a fifth-wheel camper, with another box trailer attached behind that. It is a smaller fifth-wheel camper, so I’d guess the total weight being towed is in the 10-15,000 pound range.
The trailers are absolutely dwarfed by the truck, because with the sleeper cab, and 8 wheels in the back, I think the truck is as long as the camper, and certainly is taller.
It is interesting.
It also makes me wonder, if the truck has a sleeper cab, what do they need the camper for? I suppose it was most likely a case of needing to move the trailer, and that was the only suitable vehicle they had.