A bigger instalment today, catching up after a hectic day on the road. Got a brew ready? OK, here we go!
A 2pm appointment with Singer left the morning with time to kill. And how better to do that than go kicking some tires. Sorry, tyres.
Hunting for somewhere to stop for breakfast we saw Singer man Maz in his Boxster Spyder coming the other way, his olive green wheels matched to the paint on the green 911 parked outside the show the other day somewhat distinctive. We'd be seeing him later...
But first some car spotting. I'd hoped to dig out a Californian Shed at $1,000 but it doesn't seem like those kind of cars lurk on used car lots here. The climate is famously friendly to old metal though so there are still plenty of interesting old cars around, a good number of them 80s Mercedes W123s with paintwork flattened by the sun, headlight lenses cloudy from years of sand blasting and daft impact bumpers jutting out like the fat collagen inflated lips on some of the ladies of a certain age.
Thoughts of escaping the Porsche overload didn't last long, there still being a supply of original SCs and similar around, plus a proper 80s Hollywood spec flatnose Turbo or two. One showroom - Chequered Flag - had a particularly nice yellow SC in stock for $34,000 that'd probably be ripe for a bit of back dating but, frankly, would be rather nice left as-is.
Chequered Flag also had some oddities like a Series III Landie with bare polished aluminium bodywork and a blue over gold Lotus Esprit. Testarossas, Lambos of various descriptions - even a Lancia Beta Monte Carlo - the used car lots and repair shops in this part of town offer rich pickings. If you're ever killing time for a flight from nearby LAX well worth a look!
As with the trip to Magnus Walker's, arrival at Singer overlapped with another party of hacks, also in a 991 press car and finishing up a photoshoot. Clearly we weren't the only ones to spot an opportunity to cover some Californian Porsche culture off the back an LA show visit...
For the second time that day we saw Maz's distinctive Boxster Spyder, the car park also home to a beautifully and discretely fettled Alfa Romeo Giulia, a Miata on steelies and, of course, a lot of Porsches.
As the Brazilian hacks finished their photoshoot Maz suggested a drive up 'the hill', a favourite local backroad used to shakedown the latest suspension set-up or engine tune on the fettled 911s in the shop. Which turned out to be exactly the same road David from TRE had taken us up the previous day, this time in the daylight. The canyon driving culture is an established part of petrolhead life in these parts and you can see why, the 991 feeling a little lardy and breathless trying to keep up with Maz's Boxster. Switching to the latter it wasn't hard to see why, some choice mods like KW suspension turning an already formidable little car into a proper tearaway on the tight and twisting canyon roads. Smaller than the 991, eager to pivot around its central axis and with more confidence in the grip levels from the more feelsome steering it felt fabulous in the second/third gear pace these tight little roads demand.
Back at the shop we got a small introduction into the fastidious preparation of the modified Porsches Singer builds, a more detailed view of which you can get from Chris's video from last year. Suffice to say it's all he saw and more and the guys as passionate and driven as you'd expect given the perfection of the finished product.
More on this anon, for now some pics.
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