Paso Robles Classic Car Show Weekend 2012

On Labor Day weekend 2012, my town of Paso Robles, California hosted a classic car show for pre-1977 vehicles.  On Friday evening the police blocked off both ends of the main street and all of the cars drove around in a big circle for a couple of hours.

The theme seemed to be heavily customized muscle cars, but I was happy to be there with my little electric car.

We were staged in the parking lot of a deserted lumber yard.

On Saturday morning, we packed into the park in the town square and set up for a long day.  I had both hoods open as usual to catch people's attention, which ended up in some great discussions and education about my car and electric cars in general.

I was parked next to a Porsche 550 Spyder replica, which won the trophy for our class.

Gathering of Friends Car Show 2012

Each summer the Porsche club hosts a European-only car show  in San Luis Obispo called A Gathering Of Friends, which benefits Camp Hapitok (pronounced Happy Toke, but I don't think that's what it means!)  Since I had the 914 completed, I decided to bring it down on the trailer, because I still don't think I can make it the full 45 miles from my house.  I parked the trailer behind the warehouse at my work, and drove the car across town to the show area at Laguna Lake.

Being so close to the ocean, it was a little gloomy until about 10 AM when the sun came out.

I'm parked next to a nice 70s Mercedes convertible with sheepskin seat covers...

Here's our row, Porsches as far as the eye can see.

A great selection of daily drivers, not many garage queens here.

This yellow DeTomaso Pantera was in my class and took the trophy.  The engine was pristine chrome.

This sweet 348 belongs to a friend in the Porsche club.  He's looking for another 308 / 348 with a blown engine for me to convert to electric.  eFerrari?  FerrariE?  Hmmm.  I already have most of the components picked out in my mind, with an eye to keeping as close to the stock performance as possible.

I took some close-ups of the engine compartment to see what gets to stay, what goes and what I can fit in where.  Looks like a challenge but do-able as long as I can find space for all of the batteries!

San Luis Obispo Concours

We had a great car show on June 3, 2012 down the road a bit in San Luis Obispo.  It was held on the grounds of the Madonna Inn.

First thing to hit my eye was this staggeringly beautiful Mercedes 300SL gull wing.

And the modern Mercedes SLS AMG gull wing, a 12 cylinder, 6.2 liter monster.

This Carrera GT is owned by a local Porsche club member and is popular at every car show in the area.

This is my first Ferrari Enzo.  Just brutally fast looking, like it's murdering the air flowing around it.

Ferrari row.

There was a row of refreshment tents, including this Space Shuttle-shaped rolling diner.

Another first for me, and the world, is this Fisker Karma.  I had a great talk with the rep about the details of the car and electric cars in general.  I gave him one of my project cards, so perhaps he's reading this now!

Beautiful from every angle.  Henrik Fisker was a designer at Ford, BMW and Aston Martin, then branched out into his own design and coachbuilding company.

150 watts of solar on the roof.

 This is the new 2012 Porsche Carrera 911, code name 991.

You can tell by the skinny tail lights.

The price sticker however is not very skinny.  This is the S version, but $126K, really?

Warbirds, Wings, Wheels and Major Awards

Well it's not the glow of electric sex in the front window like Raphie's father got, but this weekend I picked up a major award myself - the First In Class trophy for "Special Interests" at the Warbirds, Wings and Wheels 4 car show in Paso Robles, California.

Here she is, hoods up and targa top off in all her Teutonic electric glory.  I must have talked with over 100 people about the car and electric cars in general.  I got some nice comments about the build quality, something I spent an inordinate amount of time on.  I also dispelled some rumors about the Chevy Volt fire, range anxiety, electric vehicle cost, last week's Fisker fire, Tesla's imminent release of the Model S, Communists and Socialists...  About a dozen people remembered the car from the Warbirds show last year as an empty shell, with my promise of having it built and running by next year's show.  I don't think any of them thought I was going to pull it off, and frankly at times neither did I!

They had me lined up directly across from Corvette Row, which was ironic given the amount of gas they burn.

With a jet fighter of some kind pointed right at me.

The organizers were expecting up to 500 cars to show up.  I didn't get much time to walk around but there were cars as far as they eye could see.

 At the end of my row was this Iwo Jima-experienced P-51 Mustang, named Dolly.

And here's my major award, a 3D image of a classic American icon - hod rods at a Drive In theater on a Saturday night.  Well my little electric 914 is not quite in line with the image, but the judges seemed happy to have me and I was happy to be there.  Next up, the Gathering Of Friends VI all European car show at Laguna Lake in San Luis Obispo on July 15.

Warbirds, Wings and Wheels 2011

The Estrella aviation and car museum in my town has begun to host a car show every spring.  I attended for the first two years, but this year I decided to enter my in-progress car to enjoy the experience and talk with people about electric cars.

I had to re-attach the wheels, drop the car off the jackstands, winch it up on the trailer, drive it over, maneuver it into position, winch it off the trailer and roll it into position with no steering wheel.  Setup officially opened at 7AM but I didn't get there until about 8, and the place was virtually full.  I had to park way out at the end, but it was a good location because people seemed to do a loop down the main road and back again, and I was at the far end of the loop.

As you enter the grounds, they were taking pictures of each car.  Here's mine, not the most glamorous shot, but you can see the potential...

This was the main row, with the limit of 300 cars packed into the airplane display area.

Here is the car in position, with an informational sign I made and had laminated and the battery boxes sitting in place.  The electric motor was in plain view and was a good conversation starter.

I really lucked out later in the day when this rare and beautiful Jaguar XK120 parked next to me.  The restoration was impeccable and both cars had nearly the same dark gray metallic paint color.

I talked with at least 50 people about the car and electric cars in general.  The most popular question was, of course, how far can you go on a charge.  Most people seemed happy with the expected 60 mile range, only one person said they needed to go further than that each day.  I think that's a pretty good statistic for the potential for widespread adoption of electric cars.  Most people were very surprised that the car can go 85+ miles per hour.

Next year I'll definitely enter the car again and get it there and back under its own power.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by and took the time for great discussion.  To the person who stole my car polish, microfiber cloths, winch gloves, car exhibitor goodie bag and $40 quart of POR-15 - I hope you die of syphilis.

Firewall Reshaping

The middle battery compartment fits in where the gas tank used to go, between a vertical wall on the front trunk side, and the firewall on the passenger compartment side.  Unfortunately to fit the battery box in place, you have to "reshape" the firewall.  In fact, it's bashing as hard as you can.  I hated to do this to my new paint job, but I didn't know how to shape it when the car was in the body shop because I didn't have any parts yet.  Did I mention that EA has been tardy delivering my parts?  :^)

So here I am, bashing the firewall into shape.  There is a support bar underneath the steering column that makes for very, very hard bashing, so I crawled into the passenger compartment and cut a section of it out with my angle grinder.

Here is the progression of the bashing and the start of the bondo to leave a nice shape.

I've got the car entered into the Warbirds, Wings and Wheels show this coming Saturday at the Estrella Warbirds Museum at the Paso Robles airport.  I need to get this smoothed out, primed and painted to be ready.  I'll take it over on the trailer and get it in place in time for the start of the show.