Crystal Cove - Random TBT
 

Going through some old photos and stumbled onto a batch of my pics from June 2005 at the Original Cars and Coffee at Crystal Cove on PCH. Those were incredible events. Do you remember the car lining up on PCH waiting to enter - and then seeing the parade of all the cars flooding into the parking lot?

Among other goodies, this particular day had several Porsche Carrera GTs, at least two Ferrari Enzos, two Vectors (including the black one brought by Jerry Wiegert himself), many other Ferraris, Lambos, Porsches, Alfas, Mercedes - and a Batmobile. Turnouts varied but were regularly stunning.

It was never anything formal but had its own unspoken code that let the more unique and exotic cars park in the middle and other cars around the fringes. The Crystal Cove commercial property - owned by the Irvine Company - was never enamored of the event. People just showed up for a few hours early each Saturday morning. The Starbucks must have made big money. Before long, the event suffered from its own popularity and the Irvine Company effectively kicked the event out. In October 2006, the event moved to the Ford PAG facility in Irvine, largely thanks to John Clinard and Freeman Thomas. People like Tom Shaugnessey and Barry Meguiar pitched in to help with logistics.

Anyway, thought people would enjoy a brief trip down memory lane. If you have your own stories or photos, let's do some TBT here.

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Kevin, I always thought that Crystal Cove was after they were kicked out of the Ford Lot in Irvine? I have not been to that in a very time. The only times I was ever there was when they were held in Irvine. Where are they now? I also like to go to Super Car Sunday out in the Valley someday.

Crystal Cove was in the early 2000, before the Irvine place..

Beautiful cars. What's that black one, front left of the first pic?

Alfa Romeo Giulietta/Giulia Sprint Speciale,

As said below, Crystal Cove pre-dated Irvine. John and Freeman at Ford jumped in to provide their facility in Irvine at very short notice. I don't think there was ever a longer-term plan, so nobody knew how long Ford would be OK hosting the event. They hung on for a long time and the event exploded in popularity and attendance - way more than Crystal Cove ever had. A lot of volunteer time went into hosting at Ford. At some point, they had done more than their share and bowed out. I bristle a little at the "kicked out" description because they really stepped in to provide a stopgap solution that lasted far longer than anyone expected. Full credit and gratitude to Ford and team. The concept has spread and splintered, both in SoCal and elsewhere. But there was a magic moment in time at Crystal Cove...

These pictures seem to be close to the end at CC, when people had to line up to get in. It was not so much fun anymore. you would see Dan Gurney there a lot, sometimes on one of his bikes he was building.

Thanks. very nice.

Here are some pictures of Gurney's car at Irvine with the bubble in the top like his racer. I think it's his son driving it.
The couple I bought my 89 911 from lived in Irvine and were good friends with the Gurneys. When I went to pick up the car they had pictures of "Dan" in it, they said he had driven it a few times. They also talked about having breakfast with him and his wife on his birthday, someplace in Irvine, maybe Crystal Cove. They purposely sat Dan facing the parking lot looking out the window. This car pulled into the lot and he got excited, look, same color as my racer and even has a bubble over the drivers head. The car parked and the driver was some big wheel from Ford that Dan knew. He walked in and walked up to the group, handed Dan the keys and said Happy Birthday. His wife had bought it for his birthday and arranged to have the bubble put in the top.
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Great story about Dan and the GT 40.
Nice pics too!

I made it to the event in Irvine a few times while in LA. Amazing turn out there too.

Cheers Richard

That would be just a Ford GT, not a GT40. The GT40 was the original racing car.

Still a great story, though.

Thanks for the correction Denis, the name and story brought the original to mind.

Cheers Richard

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Hi Kevin!

I'll play!

I remember those days....... some pretty cool cars and fun days for sure!

This is our buddy Richards Ferrari...................... he was nice enough to let me sit in it...... Chris M took the picture...............

PRE-h20. I remember meeting Richard, but don't remember you. 450 knot used to come out to those Ortega Hwy blast to Elsinore. This was around 2004-2005. There are a few others that are still around.

Hey Alex! Pre-H20 in the house! And yes, I remember those Elsinore runs! I have a bunch of poor photos somewhere of some of those runs. Chasing Richard and his 360 or 993 depending on the outing, Luis, Scott, Chris, Ralph(?), etc. Big Fun!

Hi Kevin!

Yup..... its been a very long time........ fun times.... we don't do it as often as all of us would like.

I have a picture of the VERY 1st Ortega run....... after this 1st morning run 84porsche was the one that started organizing the runs for a few years.

Scott came out to his 1st run on the 2nd or third outing, we talk about this often at SOCG lunches over the years.

The 1st run was Myself, Kelly, Chris, and I dont remember this other fella.

From here the group grew to quite a few guys.

Thanks to 84 Porsche for being the one to start the runs....... good times.

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I remember you posted this on IG last week! Sadly I lost touch with most of my old Fchat friends from back in the day. Lots of great memories and friendships made at the promenade over the years there.

Here's a few pictures I managed to dig up.

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Alex - do you recall when this was? Our first Ortega run participation was November 2005. Richard brought his yellow 360. Too bad it was so far for us to do more often. I'm sure I have photos, so will see what I can dig up this weekend.

Eric - Thanks for posting the pics. We probably crossed paths a few times. FChat was the on-line epicenter for the event until it moved to Irvine. Our first Crystal Cove was early June 2005, so we missed the very beginning. At least we got to be there a few times before it closed down in October 2006.