Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 40 years, and is the founder and publisher of this magazine. Keith has also written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications, has been an emcee for numerous concours, and had his own show, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity. He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrmann Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame, and more. He has served on the board of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar’s Award. Learn more about Keith here.
Like bears waking from their hibernation, our sports cars are poking their snouts out of their caves. In the Pacific Northwest, we have actually seen the golden orb several times in the past few weeks. We expect to see much more. The only reason to own our cranky, expensive and unpredictable cars is to use them. Here are three events coming up that I am excited about. First, the Alfa Romeo Owners of Oregon is holding its 45th Old Spider Tour on Saturday, May 6. It’s a one-day, four-hour, 140-mile event. It celebrates Alfa Giulietta and Giulia Spiders (the oldest Spiders […]
Like bears waking from their hibernation, our sports cars are poking their snouts out of their caves. In the Pacific Northwest, we have actually seen the golden orb several times in the past few weeks. We expect to see much more.
The only reason to own our cranky, expensive and unpredictable cars is to use them. Here are three events coming up that I am excited about.
First, the Alfa Romeo Owners of Oregon is holding its 45th Old Spider Tour on Saturday, May 6. It’s a one-day, four-hour, 140-mile event. It celebrates Alfa Giulietta and Giulia Spiders (the oldest Spiders will lead the pack), but all Alfas are welcome. It starts near Salem and ends at Ona Beach State Park near Newport. Please email tour organizer Bill Gillham at hooligan.racing.llc@gmail.com for details.
I first started going on this tour 40 years ago. The first time was in my ex-Bob McGill 1964 Giulia Sprint Speciale. McGill, a television journalist, was the founder of AROO and had a picture of Gina Lollobrigida with the same car.
Although this is a one-day tour, several of us will be spending the night at the Best Western Plus Agate Beach Inn. We will plan for a no-host dinner nearby. This is a catch-as-catch-can, so you will need to make your own reservations. The drive home on Sunday is totally unorganized (or disorganized). How lost can we get? If interested in joining us for dinner, email me at keith.martin@sportscarmarket.com.
Soon after that is the 5th annual SCM 1000, from June 11-16. Based at the Davenport Grand Hotel in Spokane, WA, it offers five nights, four days and 1,000 miles of driving on back roads. It’s an all-inclusive event for pre-1975 sports cars. Our tour director, Sue Counselman, tells me we’ve had a couple of last-minute cancellations so there’s still a chance to join this marvelous driving, dining, sight-seeing and SCM-seminar experience. You can email her at scm1000@sportscarmarket.com if you’d like to join us.
Finally, from August 3-6, AROO is hosting the 34th Annual Northwest Classic in Eugene, OR. There are categories for touring, seat-of-the-pants TSD, and hard-core numerically driven rallyist. The presenting sponsor is Vintage Underground. This year classes are offered for both vintage (pre-1988) and modern (1989-2000) sports cars, and it is open to cars from any marque, not just Alfas.
If you have a favorite event on which you plan to exercise your collector car in the upcoming months, please share it in the comments.
Old Spider TourSCM 1000NW Challenge with Alexandra in our 65 Giulia Spider Veloce in 2010SCM 1000SCM 1000SCM 1000
