This post provided by guest blogger and Club Member John J.

I wanted to share an overview of the Club Sportiva tour of Bruce Canepa's design facility - Canepa Design. The tour was an intimate group of half a dozen of us getting the opportunity to see the facilities and the cars.

The opening of the tour was through the Museum currently housed on the ground floor with the cars that are also for sale. The large room contained over 40 cars ranging from true race cars to the more mundane Mustangs for sale. The cars in the museum included a broad array of cars, from some kept as they were acquired from racing to fully restored to a "Smithsonian level of quality." (more on this later as well) An example of the latter was Richard Petty's 1969 Ford. For those of you who know of Petty and his Plymouth affiliation, he did race with a Ford for one year - 1969. In one of the many wonderful stories heard during the tour was how the Ford engineers did not want him to race their car with all of improvements they came up with to try and beat Petty. He returned to Plymouth after a year and showed a remarkable improvement in the racing for Plymouth after his return.

The museum featured a number of race cars including Bruce's old skid racing car (one of his favorite to drive of all time), a recent vintage Nascar car (right next to another Nascar car from the 1970s showing the difference in vehicles), and Le Mans legal racing cars. The last were my favorites. They were impressive, although the second seat for meeting the Le Mans criteria looked awfully cramped. They opened up the engine compartment on one of the cars for us - a process that required two people not due to the weight of the fiberglass cover but due to its size and flexing as it was lifted. Underneath lay the 16-cylinder engine or more accurately the two V8s bolted together to make one engine. It was an impressive piece of engineering for something outrageous on the horsepower front. Of course, this overview only scratches the surface and omits many things, such as the Indian motorcycle and other treasures in the collection.

Sharing the space with the museum cars are the cars for sale. This collection ran the gamut from a highly customized Hummer H2 with all leather interior (and I mean all) to Mustangs, Porsches, Nissan Zs and even some race cars. There were two exotic stand outs as well. The first was a Countach with a mere 7,000 miles on it. The other exotic (Torbin are you still reading?) was a wonderful red Ferrari F40. It's simply a beautiful car, and I know it was whispering Torbin's name for an addition to the Club.

Now, after an hour of the tour we were all thoroughly pleased with the trip down to Scotts Valley, but little did we know the best was still to come - the shop. Canepa does the modifications for semi-trailers to make them more aerodynamic, saving significant amounts of fuel. To handle these and other cars, the shop is purpose built to handle all manner of vehicles including a two-story high painting booth for any vehicle you can imagine. Needless to say, the one semi-tractor in the shop had a minor presence overall.

On our entry to the shop my eyes drifted immediately to the Porsche 959 in the shop - a beautiful sight for the supercar of my dreams back in high school. I was so focused on the 959, I missed that there were six 959s being worked on at once. Others Club Members in our party took more rapid note of the three Mercedes-Benz Gull Wings being worked on, let alone the other cars including a couple of original Cobras.

We spent a lot of time with our guide, getting a delicious array of stories, including enough on the 959s to make their own blog. The 959 story includes Porsche using the lack of certification by US Department of Transportation so that Porsche could intentionally avoid selling the 959 in the US. Interestingly, this allowed Porsche to avoid contracts to build 959s for sale in the US. At the time, it quite possibly saved Porsche, as they were losing $100,000 per car in the mid-80s on the 959s. If you ever get the desire for one of these cars, Canepa does the modifications for them to be US legal and they track all that were built - so for a mere $500K to $650K you can get one.

Now, before leaving the shop for the backroom, there were a couple of other amazing sights. First was a Bugatti EB110 under a tarp awaiting work. The second was the non-descript gray car early in the restoration process. This car was the 'impossible' car to get, Dale Earnhardt's car from his first win. The car is being restored now.

The final stop was our foray into the back room - as large as the shop - filled with cars awaiting work. They ranged from more Porsche 959s to race cars to some truly special cars. The first of these was another Bugatti, this time one of three EB110 SuperSports built. Another was the best preserved of the original racing Shelby Cobras. It is a beautiful car, complete with the suitcase dimples in the trunk to qualify for European racing which required a suitcase to fit in the car.

The final car I will mention brings up Canepa's restoration work. It's a stunning old car that will receive their highest level of restoration. This involves such detail as photographing the bolts and screws to ensure they are put back including the position when they are re-assembled. They referred to this as their "Smithsonian Level" for car restoration and involves sourcing materials that match the period details. The car they are working on is a black inline 8-cylinder Duesenberg. It is Duesenberg chassis number one - the first car built by Duesenberg (I think in 1912 or 1913). It's showing wear and they will be working to restore the paint, parts and interior for the current owners.

I know I'd enjoy another opportunity to see the facility in the future and hope this gives those of you who could not join us a flavor of the tour.

-- This post provided by guest blogger and Club Member John J.

Labels: Auto museum, Bruce Canepa, Canepa Design, Club Sportiva, exotic car share club, Member tour, social network