drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  572,470

My friend Eric sent me a photo of himself (with his Acura TL in the background) under a blanket of snow on the morning of his departure for a visit to Phoenix from Lexington, Kentucky last Friday.  Needless to say, he was ready and anxious to get some AZ sunshine.

Eric’s arrival was timely because we were able to check out some great events taking place in & around town.  One of them was the “Concours in the Hills,” an 1,000+ car show at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills.

The fountain there was the tallest in the world from 1970 through 1980, at 560 feet in height.  We took the opportunity to stroll through the automotive merchandise (“Look but don’t touch!”) and the scenery did not disappoint.  Among the cars on display was an unbelievably rare McLaren F1.  There were a total of only 106 of those built between 1992 and 1998 and they’re going for $20 million or more each.  I’ll take two.  But perhaps my favorite car was this DMC DeLorean in appropriate BTTF garb.

… and complete with a ‘Mr. Fusion’ fuel tank.  I didn’t have any banana peels to deposit at the time.

The Concours has accelerated quickly in growth over its seven years, and for good reason:  It’s one of the premier automotive events in the southwest and it promotes good causes.  This year, proceeds from the event raised over $250,000 for Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

The level of organization and planning that went into the staging was impressive:  Cars were grouped according to make & model.  There was a strong turnout of NSX owners, including my friend Greg with his lovely Formula Red 1995 with fewer than 10,000 original miles.

I also introduced Eric to a portion of our scenic drive that will take place as part of the 2020 NALM event.  It’s a nice 90-mile round trip loop that introduces visitors to the Tonto National Forest and Saguaro lake, capped off with a lakeside lunch at Shiprock Restaurant.

Our host hotel will be the Best Western Chandler Inn, pictured below.  When registration goes live on March 1, it will include a hyperlink for booking at the contracted group rate for October’s event.

On Sunday, my friend Vlad brought his 2000 model year Phoenix Yellow Integra Type R over to the house.  It only has 31,000 miles on it, and the engine bay looks absolutely brand new.

Joining for the pictures was my 1999 Integra which recently had some work done.  After about two and a half weeks at Hon-Man in Tempe, it was ready to retrieve once again.  The good news is that the erratic idle miss/stumble has been resolved with just an adjustment of the valves.  The bad news is that the inspection revealed some prior collision damage to the left rear corner, and a few other issues to resolve in future service visits.  Check out my upcoming YouTube uploads for info on that.

Here’s the video update:

The SLX hasn’t left town since SoCal “RADwood” in December, but it did go in for a visit to one of my local body shops to have some fog lights installed.  The skilled technicians at USA Collision in Phoenix took care of it in a matter of just 3 days.  And the work was not very easy – it required some custom work to get the brackets to properly mount since the corroded original hardware was basically crumbling away.

Eric’s too SLXY for his shirt, but not for his University of Kentucky sweater.  But those fog lights!

Capping off the weekend was a visit to the local U Pull & Pay junkyard on Buckeye Road in Phoenix.  The treasure of the day there was a 1993 Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan, more lovingly referred to as a “Dustbuster” thanks to its iconic wedge styling.  The icing on the cake was the fact that I found an actual Dustbuster in another van a couple of rows away.  This picture begged to be taken.

It was nice having a friend in town, and I always look forward to my guests!

Have a great rest of the week.