Crystal Cove

Me thinks that it is time to bring CC out of the S. Cal area into the big time of F-Chat.

If you ever have to travel to Orange County for bidness or pleasure, make sure that you stay until at least Saturday morning. Set the alarm for 6:00 am. Hop outta bed and drag a comb cross yo head and head south on PCH, past Laguna Beach until you start seeing signs for Crystal Cove. The cars will be in the shopping center on your left.

Don't be late. Show's over by 9:00 am.

The waiting is the hardest part. The first shots are of the cars lining up and then filing up the parking lot. The time is 7:00 am

Dale

PS It will be a while before I post mo pics. Gotta resize them due to cheep hiney Rob!
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Just a small random sample of the cars pulling in...
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Pebble may have the "tour," but at Crystal Cove you have no choice. You gotta drive em there if you want to play. In fact, there are so many cars that there are sometimes more Ferraris in the parking lot than the show.

Want proof? Where else but Southern California do you find Ferraris in the parking lot along with the Holli Polli?

Dale

PS It really ticks me off that we have to reduce the size of these pics. They look so good in the large format, but when you reduce them down...

PPS I'll do a write up tomorrow. Too much going on today.
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Malcolm's car. Great job. Thanks for the ride.

Dale
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Any drag racers here? These cars were just hanging out in Orange. What's the story on the shifters?

Dale
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More about Crystal Cove:

Gawd, I love California. Being from Texas, I have to be careful saying stuff like that because around here dem is fightin words. I try to explain my love of La La Land by saying that I have to go there on bidness. (Yep, the goose is loose. At $1 a hand, I have discovered that being a professional bridge player ain’t gonna pay the rent.) But to tell the truth (and I always do), I love it.

Whenever I travel to SoCal, I always stay over the weekend and head south of LA where life is good. If you’re a gear head, driving Highway 1 or PCH from Newport Beach to San Clemente on a Saturday is a little slice of heaven. Spotting an Enzo next to an immaculate Model A with a full blown Cobra going the other direction is all part of the fun. Oh yeah, put the top down, pop Derrick and the Dominos into the CD, put the seat back and watch the soft parade.

This last trip I got lucky. When you play the rental car game sometimes you get the white bean and sometimes you get the black bean. You can imagine my surprise when I saw a brand new Miata with my name on it. This was a special treat because lately I have been using a street legal Spec Miata as my daily driver. I gotta tell you, this car is a hoot. For $25k, or whatever they sell for, none of you posers have an excuse. If you’re down and confused because you can’t afford a sports car, just get one of these puppies and start having fun. Compared to a Porsche Boxster at $50k or a Ferrari 355 at $75k, these Miatas have got to the best deal going. The latest verison, with fatter tires, is not as English crisp as the older ones, but you can still put that front tire right... there in a turn.

But the high point of any O.C. trip is Crystal Cove early on Saturday morning. Only in California can something like this happen. Nobody organizes it. Nobody is in charge. There are no rules. There is no judging. Just a bunch of very cool cars show up and everybody hangs out drinking coffee and swapping lies first thing in the morning.

Or maybe not. While eyeballing a nice ruby red Daytona because I’m thinking of repainting a GTC the same color, I strike up a conversation with a gentleman who said that the original color had more sparkle in it. Turns out that this guy has owned a number of older Ferraris, including the NART Daytona that won the GT class at Daytona in 1975. (Serial number 16434 for you peepers out there.) You just never know who you might meet. For example, the previous weekend I had an interesting chat with one of the writers from Car & Driver.

But the high point of Crystal Cove is still the cars, which come in all sizes and shapes. Unlike Pebble Beach or Cavallino where it takes big bucks to get on the lawn, coolness - not dollars - is the key. One Saturday, the star of the show was a pristine VW dune buggy. You know, the old Manx body and all that. This car attracted a bigger crowd than the high dollar Ferraris.

Kudos also have to go to the owners of the Crystal Cove shopping center. Most developers would completely freak out at an event that doesn’t make them a dime, but yet completely fills their parking lot with very expensive cars every Saturday. Instead of trying to kick everybody out, the developer hires rent-a-cops to keep things somewhat under control. Yeah, the RACs can be a bit anal, but show me a cop who isn’t. Again, I doubt that you would find a developer in Texas, Florida, Connecticut, or where ever who is willing to spend money to hire RACs to play nursemaid to a bunch of car guys.

If you decide to go, don’t be late. By 9:00 a.m., everybody is long gone. Your best bet at this point is to just start cruising down PCH. Ahh... California. It doesn’t git much better than this.

Dale

 

You're right, of course. I checked with a drag racing buddy and here is what he said, "It is a Lenco Shifter---clutchless-you just grab each handle and pull--they are very nice. Pro-stock Class typically use them."

He races a 56 Chevy that run 8 second quarters. Life in the really fast lane.

Dale

 

I never drove one, but rode in a bunch. Very 60s styling that still works today. If I liven in SoCal, I'd buy one in a heart beat.

Dale

 

Thanks for the link.

Dale