Berkeley Cars and Coffee photos

I've heard rumors about this clandestine car meet for a while, but I never checked it out. Until now. I've been to countless shows and am quite jaded, but this was a very fresh show with a fascinating combination of cars.

On the way there, a Lamborghini Miura S passed us. I got so excited and handed my phone to my son. Whenever he rides with me and we see something interesting, I ask him to take photos for me. 

It even got off at the same exit as us.

First, I met AutoNerdery and his Saab. I recently asked him to make two little cars for me. They are ready and I just need to pick them up. I am excited!

There's always a Biturbo at a car show, but I love them! They were $8,000 used when I was 16 and I so wanted one. But the price was too steep for this Arby's cashier making $5.00 an hour.

Rchen's Citroen XM. Some of you may remember that I delivered it to him from Portland.

TelstarLogistic's Japanese fire truck. My son adores this machine. He grabbed my phone and started snapping shots.

Donuts!

Hey, it's the Miura!

How many Montreals show up at Cars & Coffee?

M5 wagon.

I told my son that this Alfa is my wife's favorite car, so he got to work.

Then, this Carina pulled in. I was gobsmacked. I had never seen one in America. This was the car I was brought home in from the hospital in Yokohama. The owner bought it from the elderly original owner recently. I was floored.

Well? Cool show, right?

December 2021 Milpitas Exotic Cars & Coffee

Today, we checked out another Cars & Coffee, this time in Milpitas (it's a few freeway exits south of the Tesla factory). We thought we would be late, but this Countach arrived late with us. At the long red light, we could literally see the engine get hotter and hotter (the air above it got wavier and wavier).

The vast majority of the cars there were Lamborghinis and McLarens. This Ferrari GT car really stood out.

Everyone, including me, was gawking at this thing. It's apparently a kit car called the Superlite SL-C.

I like it a lot!

There were also a ton of anonymous looking Porsches. This Speedster popped out.

Alas, that Chevy S10 was not the EV version. I get the sense that the same Rivian keeps popping up all over the Bay Area, It's four dudes who probably work for Rivian, showing it off. They floored it at a red light and it was very quick. Very torquey.

No idea what this Ferrari is. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before.

Here's another one next to an iconic Diablo. @slirt tells me it's an SF90 Stradale, The only two older Lamborghinis at the show were this Diablo and that white Countach.

I had to walk back and take another picture of the SL-C.

Funny license plate.

The pedestrian Giulia Quadrifoglio was parked next to an Accord.

We are going to another meet next weekend.

New and old Countach

 

More carspotting from China

Quick, Ramon, what's the second car?

Six more toy cars

I might have gone a little overboard.

Not content with the selections at local drug stores, I went to a Toys R Us yesterday. The choices were slightly better and I got this LM002 and Brazilian Volkswagen.

I was close to a different Toys R Us this morning so I went there as well. The selection was even better. I was going to get seven or eight cars, but I was able to whittle them down to four.

This "F1 Racer" was borderline fictional, but I got it because 1) it's sort of a Formula One car and 2) the wheels glow in the dark.

Marconi car museum in Orange County

Two Fridays ago, I flew down to Orange County to celebrate my step-nephew's graduation. Outwardly, he looks like a tanned, laid back, surfer. But he just received his doctorate in environmental science from Harvard. I'm still blown away.

His dissertation, by the way, looks at air pollution across the Middle East. Environmental protection and monitoring, as you can imagine, are non-existent over there. But they do measure the air quality for particulate matters in Kuwait. My nephew was able to match the air quality with Kuwait airport's visibility. Every airport in the world, no matter how backwards, measures visibility daily. So he was able to extrapolate the air quality of every Middle Eastern city with airports. So simple and clever! He hopes to use this information to help American contractors and military personnel make respiratory injury workers compensation claims based on prolonged exposure while abroad.

I had an hour before lunch so I went to the Marconi museum near John Wayne airport. It's the personal collection of a co-founder of Herbalife, a health supplement business based on multi-level marketing. I'll reserve my judgment, but just by saying that I am surely judging.

Nevertheless, dude's got a shitload of cars.

You'll note that when I go to car museums, I tend to gravitate towards the less loved cars. A line of Ferraris? No thanks. A Bentley Turbo RL with a Fastrak transponder and an Azure convertible? Yes, please.

I took these photos of the Countach and Pantera just to show you the atrocious 1970s US-spec bumpers.

The Cizeta V16 has, shockingly, a V16. That's two Urraco V8s, in a looong block. This is the second one I've seen in real life. A quick search on my blog shows I posted about this BMW V16 once.

Here we have a Jaguar XJ220S. I never liked the looks of the regular XJ220. Too long and narrow. But this is much better. No pop-up headlights. A wider rear end. The engine's output was upped from 540hp to 700hp. This is one of six made.

Was there a special name for these removable roof panels on the Jarama?

The Espada would definitely be on my Fantasy Garage short list.

There were several F1 cars. This was Senna's 1988 McLaren-Honda.

Schumacher's 1996 Ferrari.

Simtek-Cosworth Ford. MTV!

Keke Rosberg's 1985 Williams.

This was the highlight, the Ferrari FX created for the Sultan of Brunei.

Here's the project manager of the FX: