November Editor’s Note
It’s beginning to look a lot like another year is drawing to a close. We hear from friends around the country who are taking one last long-weekend drive in their favorite Porsche before they put it away for the snow and salt season. Our contributor Sean Smith did exactly that, taking his own weekend drive for […]
Road Scholars Grand Opening and Car Show
Road Scholars facility on Page Road Extension in Durham, N.C., has been open for a while now but the company has wanted to celebrate its facility and thank its friends, customers, and neighbors. On Saturday, October 15, 2016, Kevin Watts, Tim Kuhn, Heather Carlisle, and I, along with the rest of the Road Scholars team […]
Porsche 356: GFK Style
If last April’s Luftgekuhlt – organized by Patrick Long and Howie Idelson – could be called a grande bouffe of SoCal air-cooled cache, then Frank Casares’ primer yellow, chrome-Fuchs wheeled, slammed 1959 Porsche 356 T-2 could be considered la cherie-digestive; that perfectly sweet night-cap with a flavor complementary to the dining experience, but alluding to something […]
Recent Books to Give Yourself
A Century of Motoring Jon Pressnell. 2015 Shire Publications. 112 pages. List price $12.95. ISBN: 978-0-74781-510-5 Available on Amazon. This enjoyable small book (it measures just 5 3/4-inches on a side) won’t weigh down your coffee table, your bookshelf, or your hands as you page through. Its 51 chapters – each a two-page spread – […]
Fall Colors in the Trees and on the Road
You never need a good reason to go out and drive a Porsche. But if you have two good reasons…fall foliage in Vermont, cheddar cheese— Hold it. Three, three good reasons: Fall foliage, cheddar cheese, and maple syrup. No, wait…four, four good reasons: Fall foliage, cheddar cheese, maple syrup…and winding roads… Damn! I forgot Mount […]
Recent Auction Results
Bonhams Preserving the Automobile The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum – Philadelphia – October 3rd, 2016 Lot 234: 1978 Porsche Typ 911SC Targa – Estimate: $30,000-$40,000 – Sold for $31,350 The Zoute Sale Knokke-Heist, Place Albert de Knokke le Zoute – Knokke-Le Zoute, Belgium – October 7th, 2016 Lot 12 – 1992 Porsche Typ 968 Club Sport – Without reserve […]
September Auctions Results
Bonhams: The Beaulieu Sale 3 September 2016 11:00 British Standard Time Beaulieu National Motor Museum Prices include fees calculated in U.S. Dollars. Porsche: Lot # 421 1976 Porsche 911 2.7-liter Targa. Without reserve. Estimate: $33,000-$40,000. Sold for $34,203. Lot # 436 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2-liter Targa. Estimate: $37,000-$46,000. Sold for $41,639. Other […]
Memo to Self: To Do List 550-0090
Wash, clean, wax Battery (replace) Oil Pressure Gauge (repair) Custom car cover (buy) Original wheels, tires, original brakes (find) Original small outside mirror (find) Original steering wheel (find) This was George Reilly’s to-do list when his 550RS/1500 Spyder arrived at his home in Florence, AL. He’d acquired the car – 550-0090 – from its current […]
996 GT3 vs. 997 GT3 – Showdown in the Desert
When the 911 hot rod club R Gruppe decided to hold their annual gathering in the desert this past May, many members started to think about the one thing their early air-cooled cars didn’t have – air conditioning. It’s not surprising then that a few modern GT3s showed up at the Omni Resort Treffen in […]
Akron or Bust – The Porsche 356 Registry East Coast Holiday
“I don’t want to drive for eight hours on the freeway,” said a fellow 356er when I suggested driving our tubs to the 356 Registry East Coast Holiday in Akron, Ohio. Sure, it’s more fun to ply the back roads in an old Porsche, but the half-century-old cars are not unsuited to highway travel. Modern […]
October Editor’s Note
Our lead story for October comes from Bruce Sweetman, who drove his 356 from home near Nashville up to Toledo for the East Coast fall 356 meeting. His story reminds us all why we love Porsches, love driving them, and how much we enjoy encountering others who feel the same way. With Randy Wells’ examination […]
September Auctions Previews
Bonhams: The Beaulieu Sale 3 September 2016 11:00 British Standard Time Beaulieu National Motor Museum Porsche: Lot # 421 1976 Porsche 911 2.7-liter Targa. Without reserve. Estimate: $33,000-$40,000. Lot # 436 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2-liter Targa. Estimate: $37,000-$46,000. Other interesting automobiles: Lot # 444 1932 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 5th Series Gran […]
Monterey Auctions Results
Bonhams offered a good eclectic mix of vehicles during its one-day sale near the Quail Lodge and Golf Club. Bids came mostly from buyers in the room, with some phone and internet offers. One of its most startling vehicles was a 1955 Lamborghini DL25 tractor. Interest among three bidders in the room took this early […]
Tradition. With A Twist
The 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance provided enthusiasts fabulous cars to enjoy, including stunning special classes, an exciting emcee entrance, and a single Porsche entry that made it all the way to the podium. The Best of Show winner proved to be a “tradition with a twist”. The quest for Best of Show at Pebble […]
Give Me the Werks, Please…
Of all the events on the exhausting schedule of Monterey Car Week, the Porsche Club of America’s Werks Reunion at Rancho Canada Golf Club is unfettered, unadulterated, unlimited Porsche, Porsche, Porsche. While many of the exotic, rare, or ultra-restored cherries are reserved for Pebble Beach or Concours on the Avenue and most of the hard-core […]
2016 Carmel Concours on the Avenue: The Magical Gathering
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea… —Peter, Paul, and Mary Whether you’re a little boy named Jackie or a grown adult who’s an avid automotive enthusiast, it’s hard not to believe in dragons if you’ve spent the day in Carmel for the Concours on the Avenue, the kick-off event for Monterey Car Week. […]
Monterey Perspective
Another exciting mid-August week at Pebble Beach is behind us, and it seems the only way to describe it is “same old, same old.” The auction houses (RM/Sotheby’s, Gooding, and Bonhams) had a good week and some great cars changed hands. The overall dollar amount was down but a closer look provides a simple answer. […]
September Editor’s Note: The Monterey Week
Monterey week was one of moments, some very big and others almost unnoticeably small. At Bonham’s preview on Wednesday, an old friend, Jared Zaugg – someone I always trust to point out to me the interesting cars beyond those with a Porsche badge – alerted me to two interesting pieces. One was a tractor. Those […]
August Editor’s Note
For many car enthusiasts, August is the month we wait for, we save for, and we plot and scheme for. How are we getting to Monterey? Where are we staying? What all are we doing? From the August 13 and 14 Monterey Pre-Reunion at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, through the Concours on the Avenue in Carmel-by-the […]
Off The Beaten Path – Great Drives from S.F. to Monterey
In our June issue, we explored a John Steinbeck-inspired inland journey from L.A. to Monterey. This month we hit the coast with Jack Kerouac on the road from San Francisco to the Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Seeing as how Kerouac was a pretty casual guy with his beatnik poetry and free association, we are going to […]
California Prequel – Chilling at Dana Point
If you think of the upcoming Monterey Car Week as intense, exotic, and overly expensive, it might be worth taking a look at the late July events surrounding the Dana Point 356 Concours in Southern California. We say events because there’s nothing really scheduled. But usually a number of fun things pop up with the local Porsche […]
Keep Calm and Carry On
The collector car market as a whole is a worldwide market, and the worldwide economy – as a whole – affects this market, sometimes with wild swings. Think Brexit, China slowing down, wars, and the idiots we enlist to run the world. Society as a whole has a pretty crappy track record of choosing who […]
Monterey Auctions Preview
If you’ve missed the Porsche of your dreams – or are hankering for one you never ever even thought about before now – you have a chance in Monterey to find it. Between the six auction venues, there are 140 Porsches available to surprise, satisfy, or stun you. And that doesn’t count those available by […]
How Pebble Beach Has Become THE Concours d’Elegance
It started with racing. “Four Races THRILLING EUROPEAN STYLE ROAD RACE FEATURING THE WORLDS FASTEST SPORTS CARS” was in bold print on the poster advertising the event. While the poster never mentioned the Concours, it promoted “Tickets $1.00” and “Free Parking.” The first Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance took place on Sunday morning, November 5, 1950. […]
Winning at Pebble
What will win Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance later this month? We don’t know. But reviewing past winners can offer some insights. The Best of Show cars at Pebble Beach have evolved through the years. The first four winners were new automobiles and the fifth winner, in 1954, was a 1952 […]
Lapping le Circuit de Spa Francorchamps
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to lap one of the great European racing circuits at speed? That opportunity came up recently as part of an auto-themed tour organized by a good friend so I jumped at it. The famed Belgian road course Spa Francorchamps is 150 km from Düsseldorf, Germany and […]
Deux plus Deux = Romain!
You might expect Porsche factory driver Romain Dumas to spend a week celebrating his second Le Mans overall win. Instead, he hopped the next flight to Colorado and – at 5am Tuesday – started practicing in his Norma-Honda AWD prototype on the ever-daunting Pikes Peak, hoping for his second overall win on the mountain. Competition […]
Bellissima! The Italian Automotive Renaissance, 1945-1975
Nashville, Tennessee—Bellissima, the latest automotive exhibition curated by Ken Gross, now open at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, grabs visitors right away with the BATs, Alfa Romeo’s trio of futuristic 50’s concept cars. These winged beauties, drawn by Franco Scaglione of Carrozzeria Bertone, are designed to cut the air with a minimum of […]
The Luggage Collector – One Man’s Obsession with Porsche’s Early Travel Gear
“In 1982, my father purchased a new Weissach Edition Porsche 928, the 44th of 215 made. It came with a special 3-piece factory luggage set produced by ‘Seeger’ of Verl, Germany,” says Chris Stavros of San Diego, California. “When he sold the car two years later the new owner didn’t want the bags, so my […]
My Lancia 911 Porsche B20
My love of Lancias goes back to the Lambda in the 1920s. Such innovation, like the first unit body and that sliding pillar independent front suspension. The engines, a 13- or 14-degree V4 in a rectangular block tucked under a cylinder head with its sole camshaft. Tip of the hat to Vincenzo Lancia. Then there […]
July Editor’s Note
June 2016 has proven to be a month of one enormous and two merely big histories made. Porsche won its 18th 24 Heures du Mans on June 19, against an incredibly hard-fought – and deeply heart-breaking – effort by Toyota. Porsche’s drivers – Neel Jani, Marc Lieb, and Romain Dumas – took the victory; it […]
In Monaco, Searching for Real Jewels
The Monaco auctions have come and gone. And the numbers didn’t come out as most expected. Disappointing results may have different meanings. With few exceptions, consigners didn’t show up with cars and the buyers didn’t show up for them. The auction houses didn’t put their best feet forward. In Monaco for RM/Sotheby’s auction, the consignees […]
Wolfgang Denzel: A Porsche Competitor Then and Now
As a schoolboy in Austria, Wolfgang Denzel gave fellow students advice on how to build racing bikes. Born into a bell foundry family in 1908, Denzel had built his own motorcycle by the time he was 22 and he went on to become a champion rider on BMWs. After the war, as a BMW shareholder, […]
June Editor’s Note
We take a few historical looks in this issue, views that, in the end bring us up to coming events. Road Scholars Magazine co-founder, Kevin Watts, offers us his always insightful and ever-candid assessment of recent auction activity in Monaco. We continue to watch and report on car auctions, and we already are planning our coverage […]
Porsches at Pebble
When folks gather around the bar in The Tap Room, Stillwater Bar & Grill, or The Terrace Lounge in the Pebble Beach Lodge in mid-August to talk about Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance winners, the names Bugatti, Mercedes-Benz, Duesenberg, Rolls-Royce, and Packard come up most often. And well they should, because these five marques have captured […]
Porsche at Pikes Peak
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. So it’s worth noting that Porsche has had a large impact on the running of America’s “Race to the Clouds.” While Jeff Zwart is the best-known Porsche racer at Pikes Peak – with an impressive eight wins – he wasn’t the first to race […]
Off The Beaten Path – Great Drives from L.A. to Monterey
Driving experiences should be fun. So the last thing you want is to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic while piloting your classic car from Los Angeles to the Monterey Reunion this August. When drivers discuss America’s best scenic drives, certain ones always make the list. California’s famous U.S. Highway 1 from Morro Bay to Monterey […]
2016 Pinehurst Concours d'Elegance: Road Scholars Wins Best in Porsche Air Cooled Class
Concours: Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance Award Date: 04/30/2016 Car: 1960 Porsche 356B Super 90 With the very first 356B Super 90 ever made, Road Scholars was the proud recipient of Best In Class at the fourth annual Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance. We finished this restoration project in 2011 and it showed extremely well in a tough class, […]
Two Porsche Gatherings with a Difference – L.A.’s Luftgekühlt and Miami’s Das Renn Treffen
Interest in air-cooled Porsches has risen to an all time high – on both the left and right coasts – especially among the younger generation. Cars and Coffee events have sprung up nationwide over the last five years. Yet there’s still a growing need for an all-Porsche meeting place where new ideas can thrive in a […]
May Editor’s Note
From looking at Road Scholars Magazine in this and the past two issues, you easily might think we’ve fallen in love with Florida, or just discovered it! Florida has had a vibrant automobile culture since World War II. From racing statewide, to concours and show events on Amelia Island and in Miami, to the mecca […]
Porsche Essence Tuned to 11
1970, August, the South of France: The Blueprint for Singer. Five-year old Rob Dickinson was on holiday with his parents, chugging along the Auto Route in a VW Beetle. A 911 Targa shot past them. His father said, “That’s a 911.” The die was cast. From that day on, Dickinson has been obsessed with the […]
The Miami Beach Concours – Cars and Clothes
Seven days and 385 miles was the distance between two very different concours events. The first event was held on Amelia Island, which might as well be in Georgia. The second event was in Miami, which might as well be in South America. They had cars at both events but that’s where the similarity ends. Miami has […]
Patina Poetics…
For San Diegan John Straub, it’s always been about Porsches. Before he could drive, his dad used to drop him off at local autocrosses to take photos. That’s where young Straub noticed that Porsche Speedsters were faster than all but the most powerful Cobras and Corvettes. Right then, aged 14, he resolved that a Porsche […]
2016 Kiawah Island Motoring Retreat: Road Scholars Wins Best In Class (Race Cars) Photographs by Guy Smith and Cam Ingram
Road Scholars showed two cars from the Ingram Collection at the 2016 Kiawah Island Motoring Retreat. 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder: Best in class (Race Cars) 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder: Super Car Class We brought home the big Golden Pineapple Trophy and enjoyed the weekend on Kiawah Island.
2016 Amelia Island Concours D'Elegance: Best in Class – Porsche – Rare 356 Open (Photographs by Guy Smith, Jeff Zwart, and Cam Ingram)
The 21st annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is now history, setting a number of new records even as founder and chairman Bill Warner abbreviated the awards presentations on Sunday afternoon in anticipation of rain. Days before this, however, Porsche Cars North America helped kick off the weekend with its Porsche Wine Maker’s Dinner on Thursday […]
Is It Really Your Car?
The Everglades existed for thousands of years as a tropical wetland. In 1880 it was decided that the Everglades could be improved. By 1947 over 1,400 miles of canals had been built to improve the Everglades. As a result of all these improvements we are now in the middle of a $10.5 billion 35-year restoration […]
The Value of a Name
The auction craziness in Amelia with Jerry Seinfeld was interesting, and confusing, and it left me wondering what a name is worth. At the start of the “Seinfeld Collection” of Porsches, Jerry came out, said a few words, and confirmed if you bought one of his cars you could get your picture taken with him. The vast […]
April Editor’s Note
In some senses, the Amelia Island auctions provided bidders, sellers, auction houses, and observers with a bit of a reality check. To continue the metaphor we used in our March preview story, the electricity came back on. There was spirited bidding in the tents and ballrooms. Good cars offered at no reserve commanded solid prices […]
True Turbo – A Look Back at an Early Porsche 930
Of all the Porsches the proverbial man-on-the-street now wishes he owned, the early 911 Turbo (Typ 930) has rapidly climbed the charts as one of the most desirable. It’s not surprising when you consider how quickly it reached the status of cultural touchstone. No doubt, in part due to all the posters of the crouching […]
Postcards from Amelia Island – The 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance
Friday, March 11 Sunshine seeped through the Spanish Moss-draped Live Oaks as the crowd shuffled towards the Ritz Carlton across the dewy 10th fairway in the early morning. In front of the hotel, teams of technicians and PR personnel set up new-car test-drive stations along the grand entrance: Mercedes, McLaren, Jaguar, Porsche, and bad-boy Lamborghinis […]
Auction Wrap Up Amelia Island 2016
Bonhams Bonhams kicked off the Amelia weekend with its auction at the Fernandina Beach Golf Club, starting at 10:30am, Thursday, March 10. Longtime Bonhams executive and auctioneer Malcolm Barber shared sales duties with podium regular Rupert Banner. Their two styles complemented each other, Barber dispatching sales briskly and efficiently, and Banner patiently coaxing and cajoling […]
Auction Preview Amelia Island 2016
The three auction houses that traditionally offer cars for sale during the Amelia Island weekend will have a great variety of interesting automobiles available. On the whole, sale price estimates reflect the growing belief that 2015 was the recent price peak, and that international politics and economics are having an effect on auction expectations. That […]
Long Haul Porsche
Some people buy Porsches for their performance and some for prestige. Some buy Porsches as investments. And some people just drive them. John Hudson is one of those who flat-out drives his Porsches. Two models share garage space in his Nashville, Tennessee, home: a 2001 911 Carrera and a 1987 911 Carrera. The 2001 Carrera […]
Gasoline: The Good News, the Bad News, and the Ugly News
The gas tank in your collector car is a gasoline storage area. It’s a really bad storage area. If you would drive your car more often storage wouldn’t be an issue. That’s not going to change so we now have to figure how bad the gasoline in your car actually is. Gasoline is a highly […]
To Restore or not to Restore, That is the Question
“In the nascent days of car collecting, the established Concours d’Elegance events, such as Pebble Beach, praised cars that were restored to original spec. Many restorers believed that the only way to impress the judges and achieve a ‘perfect’ 100-point score was to make the car look new again. Within the last decade or two, […]
March Editor’s Note
The Scottsdale auction week in 2016 ran late this year. The sales frenzy in Western America that traditionally has ended in mid-January typically gave auctioneers time to rest their vocal cords and it allowed buyers and consignees time to regroup. Not so this year. This time lag has been necessary before subjecting the auction staffs […]
Did Someone Yell ‘FIRE!’?
As we wrap up the first multi-house auction week of the year, the only question I have is: “Did someone yell fire?” The movie was playing but no one was in the theater. This past week in Scottsdale left us asking the question, “What’s the difference between a collector car and a used car?” The auction […]
The Shop Burned Down – Now What?
Three basic questions we never think to ask: Who is responsible for damage, or theft, while my car is being restored? What sort of insurance does this restoration shop have to protect me against financial loss? What type of insurance should I have on my car while it’s in the shop being restored? Restoration shops […]
February Editor’s Note
The photograph here summarizes Scottsdale during auction week 2016. When the sales were done, thunderstorms dumped on the region, dense grey clouds remained overnight and through the next day, temperatures dropped, and it became even more clear that the only electricity in any auction hall in the days before this had come from high tension […]
The Car That Inspired a Book: Ryan Snodgrass’ 1976 Carrera 2.7 MFI
“To whom much is given, much is expected.” This might seem like an unusual quote to open an automotive story, but it happens to fit. Ryan Snodgrass of Washington state has made a lot of good decisions in his life, including his choice of career and family. It’s also allowed him to take on the […]
Where does Arizona Fit? The Scottsdale Auctions Recap
After five years of price run-up in the auction and collector car marketplace that began in 2010 and peaked in early 2015, the business side of this hobby released a nearly weeklong collective burp in Scottsdale. This was not unexpected. For at least a year, collectors, brokers, dealers, and observers have been heading off to […]
From the Sublime to the Absurd: The Lane Motor Museum
Head in any direction inside the Lane Motor Museum and explore the largest collection of mostly European automobiles in America. The building’s double doors open onto a small lobby where you purchase your pass or browse the gift shop. Going through the next set of doors is breathtaking – the museum equivalent of entering the […]
Down the Porsche Rabbit Hole
Everyone’s dream: getting your very first Porsche! But which one? Project 914? C4 Cabriolet with room for golf clubs? Cayenne Turbo S for those epic all-terrain drives to…the mall? GT3RS might be just right for Cars and Coffee. Maybe a 550…but is one really enough? There were two seaters and then later versions had center […]
January Editor’s Note
Spoiler Alert: Scottsdale Auctions are Coming! Happy New Year! There’s good news already: If you’re reading this, it means you survived the holidays. It suggests you did not end up experiencing your own version of some movie like TriStar’s creepy Silent Night, Deadly Night, or Billy Bob Thornton’s misbehavior as Bad Santa, or Catherine Deneuve’s […]
In Love. Again. And Again. And Still.
Some people might suggest Jack Gish is fickle. After all, he’s been in love so many times. In 1969 Gish was a high school senior, working at his father’s distributorship of industrial fasteners in Howard Beach, NY. A chance meeting with an enthusiastic salesman changed his life and introduced Jack to the world of Porsche. […]
Can You Trust Your Cars?
Your car collection is your property and you need to give some thought as to the best way to transfer this property to your family upon your demise. That of course assumes that someone in your family actually wants your car collection. You’re on your own there. Using a Trust There are occasions when it’s […]
What’s with all this Air-cooled Porsche Passion?
Chances are if you’re reading this you know someone who owns a classic Porsche. Maybe it’s a 356 or a 911. Heck, even a 914 will do – so long as the motor is air-cooled and behind the driver. Just recently I had a conversation with an owner who said that showing his Porsche at […]
Something Old, Something New – December 2015
Carrera 2.7 – The Soul of the Legendary Carrera 2.7 RS Lives on Within the Carrera 2.7 MFI Ryan Snodgrass. 2015 Parabolica Press, Kirkland, WA. 406 pages. Slip case. (ISBN 978-0-9962682-8-8.) Ryan Snodgrass’s new Carrera 2.7 is the logical and meticulously researched follow-up to the Carrera RS history written by Drs Thomas Gruber and Georg […]
When is a Restoration Done?
Restorations are a lot like political campaigns. They don’t stop, they just run out of money. Both endeavors begin with great enthusiasm and wildly optimistic goals. Things go along nicely for a while and then you begin to realize you have a very high burn rate. You’re spending money faster than it’s coming in. Your […]
2015 HSR Classic 24 of Daytona: The Beautiful Secret
It’s tough to say which comes first…the vibration rising through the ground, up your legs, into your torso, rattling your brain…or is it the sound, simultaneously grinding, attacking, and seducing your eardrums with a cacophony of throaty, raspy whines, roars, and rumbles echoing through the Daytona International Speedway. You feel and hear it even before […]
December Editor’s Note
Thanksgiving has passed and we hope you survived not only that day but also Black Friday and the full, amazing sports weekend. With this, our December issue, we complete our first calendar year of publication and, including the post-Monterey auction special edition, we’ve given you 12 issues to get to know us and for us […]
2015 Hilton Head Concours: Road Scholars Wins Best in International Sports Cars Class
The Ingram Collection won Best in Class (Sports Cars International) with their 1955 Porsche 356 Continental Coupe. Road Scholars completed a full restoration on this early Continental Coupe.
Something Old, Something New – November 2015
With this November issue, book reviews return to the magazine. These listings appear in this issue to give those who love you perhaps enough time to source, secure, and gift wrap them for you in time for the December holidays. You’ll know how much they love you if you ask for either of these first two […]
Jaroslav Vaclav Juhan – An old friend with stories
(13 October 1921 – 28 September 2011) “Larry!” The voice was strong and gravelly. It had a soft accent that assembled elements of Czech, Italian, Spanish, German and English in a gentle, aristocratic structure, recognizable from a recent telephone conversation. Jaroslov Juhan’s hand went up in the crowd. “How good to meet you after all […]
Timeless Grace
Cruising the high desert and mountain roads of New Mexico in the 1951 Split-Window Pre-A 356, one almost forgets what year it is. Though the car is slow and imprecise by today’s standards, there’s so little traffic one forgets what year or even decade it is. The dawn light gives the car an ethereal glow. Its […]
November Editor’s Note
Some months back, we published a story titled Remember When the Car Hobby had Seasons? The traditional ones – summer and fall – are in retreat. The next car season – of indoor new model introductions or collector shows, and of seemingly around-the-clock cable TV visits to car tuners or barn finders, is just not […]
As Nice As Pie – A 1953 Porsche 356 That Still Delivers The Original Goods
Michael Copperthite comes from a long line of pie makers. His ancestors founded the Connecticut-Copperthite Pie Baking Company in Washington D.C. on Thanksgiving Day 1885 with nothing more than a horse, a wagon, and $3.50. By 1897, Henry Copperthite Sr. was a millionaire with hundreds of delivery wagons, one of which now resides in the Smithsonian […]
Hibernation is for Bears, not Cars
You shouldn’t put your car in hibernation. You should be driving your car. You need to drive it at least once a month – every month. You’re going to ignore this advice. You’re going to tell me it’s cold in the winter and there is salt on the road blah, blah, blah. The time and […]
October Editor’s Note
This October issue arrives on the heels of a great event for Porsche and a disaster for Volkswagen. It’s difficult to completely divorce the two because the VW scandal was the 800-pound gorilla lurking around Monterey and Laguna Seca. It led to several dozen VW and Porsche executives and board members canceling their plans to […]
Tom Gloy’s Lean-To Treasure
Tom Gloy has a philosophy about collecting. “I only want a small collection,” he says. “I want to be able to drive them and I don’t have a large storage space. So I keep it to a limited number of cars, and I try to have the best…” By “the best,” he doesn’t always mean […]
Rennsport Reunion
Walking into the event very early, a first timer asked “I’ve never been to one of these; what should I look for?” The Rennsport veteran paused, trying hard to answer adequately without giving too much away. He looked at the newcomer. “You look like you’re old enough to remember The Beatles. Let me put it […]
Original Doesn’t Mean Original
At one point every car was original. That was the day it was driven out of the assembly plant. Over the years things were changed. At the very least the original oil and brake fluid were changed for fluids with a modern chemical composition. If the car was actually driven then the brake pads have […]
SEARCHING FOR SALT – All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go At Bonneville Speedway
Want to go 200 mph? Call 911. That’s what Tom Woodford of California feels like doing after being denied a chance of attaining that magic number at Utah’s Bonneville Speedway for the past two years in a row. In September 2014, Woodford trailered his newly modified 1975 911 from California to the “World of Speed” […]
Rennsport Reunion V
March has come quickly and most of you know what that means – the first big event of the year happens with the always-exciting Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. It seems that this event gets bigger each and every year for the Porschephiles – the rarity and number of Porsches on the field is downright astounding. […]
Is Your Project Car Insured?
It was going to be a six-month project. When the registration came due the car was still on jack stands. In an effort to be frugal you didn’t renew the registration. Surprise. That car is no longer insured. Once the registration lapses you no longer have a car as far as most insurance companies are […]
Werks Reunion 2015
If you’re a Porsche fanatic and attended Monterey car week, then you were at the Werks Reunion event held on Friday at the Rancho Canada Golf Club in the Carmel Valley. It’s a Porsche Club of America sponsored event that celebrates all things Porsche. This year’s event commemorated 40 years of the turbo, but all […]
The 2015 Carmel Concours on the Avenue: The Intimate Extravaganza
“Paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much…much…better.”– Laurie Anderson, Performance Artist Some have called Monterey car week overwhelming; some said extravagant; others uttered garish. But if there was one word to describe the opening event – the Concours on the Avenue – in Carmel-By-The-Sea, it might be intimate. The Intimate Extravaganza. Both […]
Chasing Jim Morrison, Riding on the Storm
I went to see a friend the other day and he showed me around his collection. Hidden in a small town near the Washington/Canada border, he has gathered together 15 or so great cars. He tends to buy cars that drive well and have even better paper trails. The collection consists of Porsches and muscle […]
September Editor’s Note
Just when you thought you were done with the Monterey Peninsula from August, we bring you two souvenirs. Writer/photojournalist Sean Cridland takes us back for a thoughtful and entertaining look at the Concours on the Avenue, and at the Werks Reunion. Regular contributor Randy Wells weighs in with the story of one man’s passion for […]
THE TRIBUTE CAR: Building a Toad Hall 911 ST Replica
In the fall of 1971, 25 year-old Michael Keyser of Toad Hall Motor Racing ordered a 2.5-liter Light Yellow 911 “ST” sport purposes Porsche from the factory. In December, he traveled to the Sports Department in Stuttgart where he met with Jürgen Barth, who was the same age and from a well-known racing family. Barth agreed […]
On Quality & Quantity
There is something revealing in the fact that six auction houses in Monterey offered more than 150 Porsches for sale. Elsewhere in this issue, we have suggested that the bubble of investment opportunity has moved past the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, like clouds streaking across the sky, to embrace the 1980s and 1990s, heading toward […]
August Mid-Month Guest Commentator
Well folks, it’s over. The Monterey-Peninsula-ultimate-car-guy-week has come to a close. I was most interested in the auction results and they proved very thought provoking. Overall, the auction houses sold some $390 million in cars this year, compared to $410 million last year. Some will say the bubble has burst, but I will tend to […]
LONG LIVE THE BUBBLE – But Think of it Differently!
For generations, legions of enthusiasts have gathered cars of their era, vehicles they admired when they first discovered automobiles and when they first started driving. Market observers watched interest in 1960s muscle cars begin to grow again 20 years ago (after stock and investor car markets crashed). Fascination with 1970s cars soared soon after that. […]
What Happened to the Embarrassment of Riches?
Editor’s Note: I hope that by the time you see this March issue, a number of you who came to Los Angeles for the annual literature and swap meet – or Trash & Trinkets as a good friend calls it – you also will recognize the structure shown at the top of the page in […]
The Influence of Advertising and Sponsorship
Throughout Porsche’s racing history, 911s with an “R” in their model designation were dreamt up by minds inside the building. Ferdinand Piëch of course gets credit for the 911R. A broad cast of characters – motivated by company chief Ernst Fuhrmann – devised the 911 RS Carrera 2.7. But while the idea for one of […]
An Embarrassment of Riches
With total production of Porsche sports car models hovering around a million examples, perhaps it’s not unexpected how much interest the six auction houses are lavishing on this make in mid-August at Monterey. Call it an embarrassment of riches, if you like, but if you are seeking a 356, 911, 959, Carrera GT or one […]
The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Collection
How does a car collection happen? Can you actually control your collection or do your cars simply have a force of their own? Don Garlits One of the best racecar collections in the world got started because the family saved everything. Don Garlits said that his father was a pack rat and he simply followed […]
August Editor’s Note
The long-awaited Monterey “speed week” is here. For many, the only purpose is the racing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. For others, the variety of shows and concours – from Tuesday’s Concours on the Avenue in Carmel, through Thursday’s Tour d’Elegance, and Friday’s Quail: A Motorsports Gathering, and the […]
Jeff Zwart takes 1st place in Time Attack 1 – Pikes Peak 2015
Road Scholars was thrilled to be one of Jeff Zwart’s sponsors at the 93rd Annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb, and is proud to share this incredible video of his 1st place-in-class run at the event on Sunday, June 28th. This year marked the 93nd Annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado Springs, which is the second oldest motor […]
Watch the Road (or Restoration,) but Mind the Gauges
There are two very good reasons to restore the gauges in your collector car. First they don’t work. The other reason is they’re ugly. Ok, not really ugly but they’re certainly not up to the standard you just achieved with your paint and upholstery. You want everything to look as if it just rolled out […]