Keith Martin
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1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola and 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Take Amelia Island Best in Show
The 21st annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is all wrapped up. I’ve been here for 19 of the events to date, and each has been memorable. In many ways, the Amelia Island weekend is a spring break camp for gearheads. It’s as if each year our parents bundle us off and send us to a familiar…
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Is the Tiptronic 911 Turbo Really Just a Cayenne?
Since it first arrived in January of 2015, the SCM 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo has seen almost nonstop action. Alexandra confiscated the car as soon as it was unloaded from the trailer that brought it up from Los Angeles, and I didn’t see it for a month. Then Bradley and I took it on a 400-mile trip to…
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The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling! (Well, Maybe Not)
“We’ve got to separate the signal from the noise.” That’s what collector car connoisseur Miles Collier says when we are trying to find our way to the core of a challenge. Miles’ saying refers to tuning a vintage radio, where you adjust the dial until the static disappears and a voice can be heard clearly.…
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Trade the Porsche for a Lotus?
This stuff always seems to happen by accident. I had just finished driving the 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo to a lunch meeting in Wilsonville, OR – a suburb 19 miles south of SCM World Headquarters. I hadn’t put many miles on the car recently. My trip log showed the last time I’d filled it with gas…
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The Alfa Barfmobile
We’ve talked a lot about ways to get and keep young people involved with classic cars. I believe you have to get them used to old cars while they are children, and one good way to do this is to include them in your old-car activities. Both my children, Alexandra (now 24) and Bradley (8),…
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Alfa Super Saves Porsche 911
It’s driving time again. My rotator-cuff surgery is healing well, and the surgeon has given me the okay to drive stick-shift cars. So I’ve been driving the Giulia Super for the past couple of weeks and thinking about how much I appreciate vintage cars, the mastery they require and how intuitive they are to service.…
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Driving the Alfa Super on Super Sunday
SCM Legal Files author John Draneas and his wife Carlyn hosted a Super Bowl party on Sunday at their home, about 20 miles away in Wilsonville, OR. The weather was glorious, and it was the perfect opportunity to exercise SCM’s 1967 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super. I pulled the Super out of long-term storage and went through my routine. I checked the…
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No Regrets in the Morning
I’m now into the restoration of my 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider over $50,000. What I have to show for it is a completely stripped body shell, with all the rust removed and damaged panels repaired. It is ready for paint and reassembly. As I wrote in my January “Shifting Gears” column, I have been…
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Cobra vs. Saleen in Scottsdale
Who wouldn’t like driving a Saleen S7 or a 289 Cobra? I had the chance to get behind the wheel of 15 top-flight collector cars during the last two weeks while I evaluated them for “What’s My Car Worth?” on Velocity. Normally during Arizona Car Week, I spend as much time wandering from auction to auction as I…
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Meteor Strikes the 2016 Arizona Concours
One-hundred eighty-seven miles north of the Arizona Biltmore is Meteor Crater, one mile wide and 570 feet deep. When the meteorite hit the earth, some 50,000 years ago, it impacted with an estimated force equivalent to 2½ million tons of TNT. At 3 p.m. last Sunday, another meteor was observed — but this one’s impact was visual, not physical.…