Phil Hill New Years Day Rally

So I spent the morning of New Year's Day driving out to the Phil Hill car show in Malibu, CA.
Several groups had arranged rallys heading into Malibu that morning and Ben and I joined a group that our friend Dave (of the PRO) had organized. Ben and his girlfriend Cindy took his Porsche RS America and I took my wife's Mazda Miata. We left Dave's shop (TRE in North Hollywood, a great Porsche Service facility) at about 8:30am on New Year's day. About 50 street Porsches, a couple of vintage Corvettes (one was a race car), a Ferrari.... and a Miata. The "parade" snaked it's way through the Valley sometimes stopping traffic as we drove through Ventura Blvd, the main thoroughfair in the area. After a slow drive through the mountains, we met another group on Mulholland Drive.

This group contained a couple of Lamborghini Diablos, several Ford GT350s, more Porsches and some more interesting machinery (about 10-15 more cars). At this point, the group broke up into several smaller groups depending on how conservatively you wanted to drive. I opted for the slower group as I'm a very conservative driver on public roads. We made our way through Bel Air, Brentwood and into South Malibu where we met yet another group of cars. This group consisted of several more GT350s, some Ferraris, more Diablos and Countachs, a beautiful D-Type Jaguar complete with helmeted drivers, a Puma vintage kit car racer, a Ford T-Bird vintage race car, BMWs, E-Types, and a most interesting vintage Sprint car converted to street use.
The group convoyed up the Pacific Coast Highway (over a hundred cars by now) and that's when things got confusing. I had wanted to go to the Phil Hill Car Show but the group that I was in was headed for a drive through the Santa Monica mountains.
By the time I realized this, I was too far away to turn back so I was stuck. I spent the next few hours driving in this pack of about 50 sportscars, most of them highly modified street Porsches. My wife's little 85hp Miata was actually hanging with the pack.
Some of the guys needed a few lessons on a race track, horrible driving skill. Of course I stayed with the slightly more conservative guys towards the back of the group. Once again, refusing to drive recklessly. A few of the guys in the front must have run some bicyclists off the road at one of turns because they didn't look too happy by the time our group came by. When we stopped at the bottom of the mountain for a bathroom break, the bicyclists caught up and singled out a couple of the cars. They just about clobbered the drivers.
I stood by and chuckled, can't say I blame the bicyclists for being angry. I used to be a very serious rider myself and in my earlier "Tough Guy" years, I probably would have punched the guy out.

The group made it's way to a park in Malibu where many of the car show attendees met us. All in all about 300 cars showed up at the park. This was actually what I came to see, not the drive through the mountains.
Car after car slowly paraded into the park: a Packard, a 1921 Hudson race car, a Pre-war Bentley race car, Ferrari Testa Rosa (the open cockpit racer), more GT350s, Cobras (real and kit cars), Lotus Super 7's (and every other Super 7 replica), Mini Coopers, vintage Fiats, Lancias, Scarabs, MG TD, Bugatti Type 57, Porsche 550s, 904s (Beck replicas), Caravelles, Siata, all kinds of Alfas, E-Types, XK120s, 150s, a Zephyr, Abarths, Lamborghini Miura, and thats just the list that I can remember off the top of my head. The park was already lined with all kinds of expensive street cars: Ferrari F40, 308s, 328s, tons of modified Porsches, Diablos and Countachs, Jaguar XKs, Aston Martins, Rolls, etc.
My wife met me there with a picnic basket (she was too hung over to make the drive in the morning) and we had a great time. I'm definately doing it again next year, but this time I'll skip the drive through the hills.

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