Up until about 3 years ago when I thought of Arizona in any aspect my mind immediately went to retirement communities and Pickleball, something like Florida where once you've worked your 40 years you go retire to sit inside with the AC blasting watching Jeopardy.
I was so wrong. I was first drawn to the car culture in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area when I started following some talented photographers on Instagram in the area at the time, such as @robertsautomotive.media , @automotive_alex and @rpj_cars (you should check their stuff out), and on the weekend of February 4th, I was able to experience this automotive oasis for the first time.
The drive from Orange county took about 9 hours, because you cannot do much about an 18 wheeler carrying diesel smacking into a guardrail about 2 hours away from the CA-AZ border. That put us in Arizona much later than we wanted, but we still got to vibe with the boys.
Upon our arrival, dinner was in order followed by a shop tour of Echelon Autosport in Scottsdale, a tour by two of the fantastic employees (Thanks Cody and Matt!) whom were piloting the shop cars around for the evening, a lowered Lexus LFA on some aftermarket wheels and a blue Aventador SVJ roadster. After that, we were pooped and went to our AirBNB.
The next day was to be the car day, and boy it sure was. Starting off with the small Cars and Coffee outside the FourtillFour cafe in downtown Scottsdate, this show is the living breathing epitome of quality>quantity. Every direction I turned my head I was smitten by something wonderful, like a 1 of 227 993 Carrera RS Clubsport or an even rarer 964 RS 3.8 Clubsport, both in Racing yellow, both parked behind a GT Silver Carrera GT, a holy trinity for the average Porsche enjoyer. Across the lot, the silly looking eyes of a RHD Imported Celica ST204 stared into my soul with intent of getting banned in WRC, while I witnessed a silver 918 Spyder strut down the street that fronts the show. You think you see a standard 911 cruising down the street? Boom, its a 911R. So, it was obviously a Porsche themed show but there was truly something there for everyone to enjoy, a remarkable morning gathering that I hope to attend again.
Later in the morning, we would head to the main reason we went out to Arizona in the first place. The Fountain Hills Concours is a show hosted on a park that surrounds a lake with perhaps the most powerful Fountain I have ever seen in my life, doubling as a fundraiser for the Phoenix Children's Foundation. Any fundraiser style show brings out the heavy hitters, and this show certainly did not disappoint. Cars like a dark blue Singer 911 DLS, a Koenigsegg Trevita and the new Countach with the Sian underpinnings were all present, but if that's not your cup of tea, maybe a JDM imported, right hand drive MK4 VW Golf is more your speed, or the Sally Special 992 Porsche Carrera which was unveiled last year during Monterey Car Week. In the distance you could see a sea of Corvettes and old Mopars, and to the left of that, 2 Apache attack helicopters sat perched on a small mound among the Fountain Hills.
While it was a great time seeing all the cool cars and hanging with the homies, this event had one unavoidable drawback for any photographer who likes clean photos: It was pretty crowded. I ended up getting 7 photos total of the cars inside the actual show because every 3 seconds an entire family would walk into frame. I enjoyed seeing everything, but next time I'll leave my camera in the car.
A few of us left the concours early and spent an afternoon taking very long and solid ganders at the cars around at the dealerships in Scottsdale, which additionally houses the Penske Racing Museum which was chock full of old Indycars. After that and a much needed nap, we found ourselves at the Pavilions weekly car meet, essentially a Police sanctioned night time car meet with some of the most absurd cars I saw on the whole trip. There were cars there that you literally do not see anywhere else, cars like a Nissan Cedrick, a few Toyota Chasers in the mix and a few turbo street builds with parachutes dangling off the back. In a way, it felt like a good old South OC Cars and Coffee event a few years back, but at night, and the vibes were good.
The drive back home from Arizona was a special route in which we went South on Highway 8 to Mount Laguna, through Julian and wound up at Lake Henshaw taking photos as the sun began to set. Both the IS300 of Noah and Josh's freshly acquired GT350 made for fantastic subjects during a phenomenal lakeside golden hour shoot. A remarkable drive to cap off a remarkable weekend for sure.
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