Pic post: (super rare edition) Alpine GTA Le Mans

Don't feel bad if you've never seen one of these...there aren't too many of them out there. And probably none in the USA. Alpine is a French brand, currently owned by Renault, and currently out of production. Plans to revive the brand were recently scuttled unfortunately, but they made some rather nice cars over the years, the A310 and the GTA in particular. This is a rare GTA Le Mans edition, which roving photographer Josh Brown captured when he was in Paris last week. With its turbocharged rear mounted V6 motor cranking out a tad under 200hp, 16x8" front / 17x10" ACT 3-piece wheels and widened fenders it's got a lot of presence, and a lot of class. Don't think you'll find one very easily however, they only made 349 of these beauties and the narrow body cars aren't nearly as handsome.


_WRS

Pic post: Ferrari F40 (now with track grime)

This is what Ferraris are for.



I was at New Jersey Motorsports Park back in October for a Rallycross event, and there was a Ferrari club meet there the same weekend. (NJMP has multiple tracks, so more than one event can happen at the same time...) Lots of exotic machinery was rolling around the town. Testarossa, Enzo, F430, F355, whatever you wanted, it was there, but this F40 sitting in the back of a hotel lot was special. Alone, uncovered and dirty from track use it just had to be snapped.



This is what Ferraris are for, not for polishing with diapers and sitting in garages...I'd like to think if I had the cash for an F40 this is the sort of thing I'd do. Scratch that, I know I would, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

_WRS

Save the 8v - My first damn car edition

Damn it. These are the words, among many more colorful and perhaps less appropriate words, which I say to myself when I think about my very first Volkswagen. It was my first car, a Rich Red (not Mars Red) 1984 Rabbit GTI.



It had 137,000 miles, and was still in the hands of the original owner, a guy named Glen who I was put in touch with by a shop owner named Bart Weinberg. Glen told me stories of how he had really wanted a Scirocco all those years ago, but was too tall to fit into one comfortably. The GTI fit the bill however (lucky for me) and so he went home with one. It was $8496 in 1984, and I picked it up for $2000 in 1995.



Seemed like a fair price, as it was in fairly decent shape, but it wasn't perfect. It ran pretty poorly thanks to about 10,000 vacuum leaks in the CIS fuel system, and it had a little rust...a little leak in the windshield, the usual. But it was mine, and it was everything I hoped it was. Back then a Rabbit GTI was pretty end of the todem poll. The VR6 GTI had just been released, and the 16v Mk2s were still pretty quick as far as things on the street.



It wasn't long before I had a host of Autotech parts for the engine, SPAX suspension, Euro bumpers, a Momo steering wheel, and some pretty sweet Borbet Type C copies. From there a little magazine called Performance VW started up and that was pretty much it. It wasn't long before a smoothed out, Euro-style look was what I wanted. If you want to get specific, it was the cover car of the August 1997 issue (Euro Express) that sealed the deal. This was something I could make happen.



By that winter money had been saved, and the car had been dropped off at a guy's home garage (for body work). His name was Toby Kuser, and he was...well I don't know who recommended him, but I'll be damned if it wasn't some of the best paint and body work I've ever seen. I may not have known it at the time, but knowing what I know now?



Well let's just say it's looking pretty good all things considered. After the car was finished in the body shop it ran around for a couple years, still on the 1.8 8v engine, but now with Compomotive MO wheels in 16x7" and a combination of Jamex springs and Bilstein shocks, and finally a set of H&R coilovers. The judges at Waterfest '99 were impressed with that, and ultimately awarded the car 3rd in class.



After that it sat, somewhat neglected, under cover behind my parent's house. The sad results of a halfway completed G60 engine swap.



I had the best of intentions, but least of funds, and only after I sold the swap (with a very nice and VERY expensive charger fresh from Bahn Brenner, in fact, John Betz's own personal charger, since he had now started running something called a Lysholm) to my good buddy Kevin W, was I able to get the car back on the street.







Robert Overholser, now of Lufteknic Porsche, came up for a weekend blitz install of an ABA tall block, complete with a 'By Bernie' head, Schrick 276, and a bunch of Techtonics parts (not to mention the Neuspeed throttle body). This motor was completed with Supersprint exhaust, and some fresh BBS wheels (bought from Ryan Davis, RIP) in 15x6" were thrown on for good measure.



This, was how the car was meant to be. It was loud, it idled like a top fuel dragster (like John Force as my dad James Brown always said) and with super minimal weight (and Corbeau seats) it was quite quick. The 4K gearbox didn't hurt things either. Sure it would top out at about 120mph in 5th, but it got there in a hurry.



I managed a few solid victories and surprised a bunch of much faster cars, including some V8 American Muscle. It placed second at H2O International, 2001. You can see Kevin W's G60 GTI just to the right...



Fast forward 3 more years and it was running even better, thanks to new injectors and some dyno tuning at NGP, but it was killing me (and the car) driving it 80 miles a day to and from work. Not to mention it was a very cold winter and she was a tad drafty...





A Mk3 Jetta VR6 was purchased, debt was incurred, and someone waved $4500 cash under my nose for the car. Jettisoning the car along with some emotional baggage, like an idiot, I sold it.







Within a couple months it had been unceremoniously ripped apart, a 1.8t hacked in (and I do mean hacked) and a clipper kit from a 1993 Cabriolet was shoved onto the car. Seats gone, engine gone. Beetle cluster sitting in the dash, on the bumpstops, you name it. It was heartbreaking. The guy who I sold it to had soon grown tired of it and a friend, Paul Grimes, actually bought the car and it sat at work for a while. I had the chance to buy it back, but my precious motor was gone, the car was not running right, and even if I had the money I probably wouldn't have bought it back. It broke my heart.



From there the car bounced around, Delaware, Arizona, some other places, before ending back east, just slightly north up in Pennsylvania. I knew the car was around, and had spoken with the owner a few times even, but always managed to miss the car at H2O, and never made it to any other shows the car popped up at. Until 2010.



This year I found my car, 15 years since I first bought it (October of 1995 is pretty close anyways), 7.5 since I sold it, and still with that same Toby Kuser respray. I recognized it instantly, from the slightly damaged rear hatch release (which for some reason wasn't shaved when I had the work done) and some other telling marks on the rain gutters, rocker panels, and under hood paintlines of the car. There was no denying it, this was my Mk1.



And it looks good, damn good considering the majority of the body work was done 13 years ago on a serious budget. I'm not a fan of the white walls, but hey, not my car anymore. All that matters to me is that the car is still alive, still looks good (if a little worse for wear) and once again has an 8v(!), now with a Lysholm'd ABA. (remember that G60 that almost went in, with John Betz's old charger? talk about full circle)



So, what now. Well I can't say I don't miss the car, but I am glad the current owner clearly values it for what it is...and has done a lot of work to get it back to a nice respectable condition. If you're reading this, thanks. I hung around as long as I could at H2O hoping you would stop by so I could shake your hand and maybe even sit in the old girl one more time, but it wasn't to be. All I can say is that if you DO ever plan on selling...you know where to come first. Please.



Damn it. I can't believe I sold that car. I still have the original shift knob, in the classic golf-ball dimpled style, and it resides in my current Mk3. Perhaps one day, if I'm very lucky, I can reunite it with the rest of the car. Go to Der Wolfsburg Rennsport Flickr Page for the full set of pics...

_WRS

Pic post: Mercedes SL65 Black Series (with a side of Ferrari 458)

While the misses was getting her hair cut over at Vidal Sassoon this past Saturday, I decided to take a walk over to Park Avenue and 55th. The area is home to a few car dealerships, Ferrari being one of them, and I figured they might have something to drool over. They did...599, California, yadda yadda, and a super clean, super nice 458.



Now, I tend to be a purist for Ferrari colors (red always, yellow sometimes, rarely anything else) but in white this car was pretty jaw droppingly smooth looking.



It had absolutely nothing on what the next door neighbors had on display. This car stopped me in my tracks, and for a Mercedes to do that, well, it's got to be something special.



And special this car is apparently. The 2010 Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series. One of only 350 to be made (and this one was already sold), twin turbo V12, nearly 700hp and over 700 ft-lb of torque, lots of carbon fiber, and a very W-I-D-E body. 570 lbs lighter than the standard SL, and able to stop you in your tracks faster than any Lamborghini.



And take you to 60mph in under 4 seconds. While zero to 60 times are pretty worthless at telling the real performance of a car, it is impressive. And the car looks like it's worth all that and then some. I've never been a Mercedes man, but this car could convert me...

_WRS

I have no idea what type of Mercedes this is, but damn...

H2O International Part Dos

What a crazy past few weeks it has been. Between H2o International at the end of September, Rallycross in New Jersey with NGP the following weekend and then various other obligations last weekend, I've barely had time to think about what to say, let alone get it out into written form.



I suppose at the end of the day there isn't much more to say. The 'event' that is H2O International appears to be on the verge of something big, perhaps something more akin to the European shows like Worthersee where it's less a car show, and more a week-long insane-huge-party-car event.



Ocean City already has bike week, hot-rod week, Corvette week, why not VW / Audi week? (it'd probably be called something lame and predictable like 'Dub' week but I think that's a: not very original, b: not inclusive enough considering the number of Audis and even BMWs that show up these days)



What next year holds could be very telling. It wasn't so many years ago that Waterfest was this big, this anticipated, but continued and increased community (or at least police and hotel) resistance more or less put a stop to the after-hours shenanigans, which in part has slowly killed the party vibe, and thus the show.



These days a show is simply not enough...if the Ocean City community can pull together and see the H2O event for what it is, a cash cow, and not like it's the Hell's Angels descending on some town off the California coast in the '60s, H2O will be able to survive. (and perhaps thrive even beyond what we have seen so far.



At least in terms of the town and the week. The show itself is slowly becoming an also-ran to the monster number of get-togethers and community orginized meets. The venue which has done so well by Jay and his crew for so many years may finally be at the end of its usefulness. Where would they go from here?



Aside from the fact it's just getting to be too small, the newly built (but not yet finished) slots / casino / dealio will probably be far too expensive to shut down for a full weekend, 'just for a car show.' However many dollars Jay pays currently, to a slot machine and gambling center located just outside of Ocean City, it would probably be just an hour's worth of revenue or so.



So it's with equal parts eagerness, dread, hopefulness and skepticism that I look towards 2011. All signs point to it being a real turning point for H2O International and those of us here on the East Coast. Will it make it to the next step, something akin to the GTI Treffen and Worthersee?



Or will it go the way of so many other once-great shows and pass into irreverence, unable to come to grips with massive popularity, and all the organizational and infrastructure requirements that go along with it. We shall see...



Complaints about judging, organization and whatever else you can think of are nothing new when it comes to car shows. It's pretty much expected actually, as there is always a squeaky wheel or ten no matter how much grease you throw out there.



It was pretty apparent this year however, that the sheer volume of people, cars and the traffic that goes with it is beginning to overwhelm the systems currently in place. Whether it's the streets and roads around Ocean Downs, the crew taking money and directing traffic, or the judges themselves (who are volunteers), all seem overworked and probably under-appreciated.



Perhaps a move to a self-judged show would be a good move...the people that attend can judge the cars for themselves. While there is always the danger of ballot stuffing, and it would surely take away from the 'concours' style of judging, I can't say it would be a bad thing.



So here's to hoping many more years of success for H2O International...if not for Jay's pockets, at least for the people who travel thousands of miles to attend, and who make the show what it is: The best in the world.

_WRS

One seriously bad ass Fiesta...

Live from Petit Le Mans! The Audi R15+