Dealer-hopping in Newport Beach

Like many places in Southern California, Newport Beach is known for its abundance of quality cars.  On any given day (weekday or weekend), I saw Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Audi R8s, Jaguar F-types, Maseratis, Corvettes, Porsches and quite a few classic cars cruising down Pacific Coast Highway.  On one Saturday in particular, I spotted an Aston Martin Vantage, Porsche Carrera GT, Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, a pair of Ferrari 458s and a few Maserati GranTurismos within about ten minutes.

As a result of the quantity of these cars in the area, there are many exotic car dealerships in town.  I decided to spend a morning "dealer-hopping" and see how many showrooms would actually let me in (for the record, Lamborghini of London does not allow people to simply walk in; you must schedule an appointment for serious buyers only.  Also, Wynn-Penske Ferrari-Maserati of Las Vegas charges admission to anyone wishing to view their showroom).

I visited Aston Martin/Jaguar, Maserati, Ferrari, McLaren and Lamborghini, and all five dealers were extremely friendly to me.  Amazingly, these are bigger showrooms than local Toyota or Chevy dealers.  I even helped a customer at Aston Martin pick out his new Vanquish while I was there (no, I did not get a commission on the sale).


Aston Martin/Jaguar:

Irvine Cars & Coffee - July 20th, 2013

*To see my photo gallery of random car sightings from the West Coast, click here.  For pictures from my "dealer-hopping," click here.

If you're a gear-head and you've ever been to a Cars & Coffee type of meet or event, chances are you've heard of Cars & Coffee Irvine, California.  If you haven't, it's just like any other group in the country - they meet regularly (Saturday mornings from 6-9 AM) and welcome all kinds of cars from many generations and countries.  What makes Irvine special are the turnouts they draw.  On any given Saturday, you'll likely see over 400 cars (maybe more), including some you've always loved, some you forgot existed and some that you've never heard of, all in one place.

I was in the area last weekend, so I stopped by.  Here's what I saw:

Notable car sightings from my West Coast Trip 2013

I've just returned from nearly three weeks on the West Coast and needless to say, I saw lots of cars out there (not just cars, but interesting ones).  It's fair to say that people who own classic or exotic cars out west drive them far more than most owners here in the tri-state area.  I also noticed that a larger percentage of these cars are owned and driven by females out west compared to here.

Anyway, I had my camera, so I took as many pictures of the cars as I could, which was barely a fraction of what was out there.  (It is worth noting that I did not take any pictures while driving - I was either the passenger or the picture was taken for me.)

*Pictures from 7/20 Irvine Cars & Coffee can be found here.  Pictures from "dealer-hopping" can be found here.


Portland, Oregon:

This 'Vette sounded amazing.

Sonoma, California:

Would Enzo Ferrari be happy with his company today?

The horse that inspired the infamous logo for Mr. Enzo Ferrari's company.

Any passionate Ferrari enthusiast can tell you how the company was founded: Enzo Ferrari was working for Alfa Romeo's racing teams in the 1930s and needed to fund Scuderia Ferrari, so he started to produce road cars as a side gig, and well, the rest is history.  Enzo never wanted to produce road cars, but for the sake of the entire sports car and supercar industry today, it's a damn good thing he did.

Throughout the course of Ferrari's storied history, most of their road cars followed one of two platforms: a mid-engined car with a six or eight cylinder engine or a twelve-cylinder engine in front of the driver.  There were rare exceptions to these platforms under Enzo Ferrari's reign, but for the most part, that's how he wanted his cars to be designed.  And Enzo was a perfectionist, so everything had to be done his way.

Ferrari's mid-engine V8 458 Italia.

The new V12 F12 Berlinetta.

Since Enzo's death in 1988, the company he left behind continued to produce road cars with the traditional pair of layouts, the mid-engine V8 and the "front-engine" V12 (the engines on V12 cars are in front of the driver, but the layouts of the car are not necessarily traditional front-engine cars).  Just as the 308 and 328 were designed under Enzo's watch, the 348, 355, 360, 430 and 458 have all taken each other's places as the company's line of V8 cars, while Ferrari's other current production cars are all different layouts of V12 cars.  So everything is status quo at Ferrari...or is it?