We spent two weeks with my in-laws in Southwest Florida. We spent most of the time hanging out in the condo, on the beach, and in the pool. But I made sure to visit the Revs Institute.
This is probably the best all around car museum I have visited. Others may have more cars, but in terms of the importance of each car on display, the themes, the presentation/curation, and the dozens of knowledgable docents on standby to answer your questions, this museum has it all. It's even built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane!
The "owner" is a Mr. Collier. The museum is in Collier County. His family developed much of the area, hence the $$$.
The museum's website is also worth checking out. Every car is documented with high quality photos and sometimes even videos.
The first car you see in the lobby is this green McLaren F1. That is quite a statement.
Collier had some kind of relationship with Cunningham, which I am wholly unfamiliar with. There are quite a few Cunninghams on display.
I learned about these 1950 Cadillac Series 61s that entered Le Mans. So much effort was put into modifying the second car for the race (aerodynamically and losing weight-wise), and yet it finished one place behind the stock version.
This morning, my 18 year old calendar showed the 2002 Mercedes ML55 AMG. When it came out, I was in awe of the ultra-wide rear tires. But was this car really necessary? Back then, 342 horsepower was too much. Now, not so much.
The June 3rd car show for 80s and 90s cars is getting a lot of buzz. I am thinking about renting an old car and driving it to the show, but what?
I tried Turo, which is like AirBNB for cars. There was a nice 420SEL for rent, and I actually booked it. But the owner canceled after realizing he was going to be out of town that weekend. Bummer.
Then I found this. But at $250/day, it's too expensive.
I then called an area Bentley repair shop to see if they knew of anyone who rented Bentley Turbo Rs. I got a resounding no. Unless something else pops up, I'm just going to go there in the i3 or TSX.
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.
