Great So Cal Drives - CA Highway 39 through Azusa Canyon

This is my favorite local ride for canyon carving.  Take cars up for a drive to see what they are all about.  Great turn outs to shoot them.  Can it get any better?

This video does a nice job of cuttin the roughly half hour, 27 mile ride,  from Azusa to Crystal Lake down to size. Yes its full of curves and switchbacks but isn't that what going up a Canyon in the mountains is supposed to be all about:?

2014 Fabulous Fords Forever Show set for 4/27/2014

The video is from 2013 and gives you a great overview of the show and what to expect for 2014.  The celebrity's are yet not announced, but they are always big and well respected in the auto world.

With this being the Mustangs 50th anniversary, this years show like last year will have a large contingency of Mustangs in a wide and wild variety of trims to enjoy.  My hunch since the next generation 'stang is due to be launched "late this summer" it too will make an appearance at this years show.  Just a hunch but a good one.

This year's show is set to take place at Buena Park's Knott's Berry Farm as it has the last several years.  The date is April 27, 2014.  All the info you could ever want can be found HERE at their web site.  If you are looking to show your old Ford, Lincoln, Mercury or Edsel you need to sign up fast as the show is a sell out every year.

Great So Cal Drives - PCH Malibu to Oxnard

I've done this drive quite a few times.  Always magnificent once you get out of town and are just hugging the coast.  In fact there's a spot not to far up from Leo Carillo there is a turn out and concrete stairs to the bottom where there is a small cove and wonderful picnic and play spot.  Its where I proposed to the lovely Mrs September 1988.

Of course half the fun of PCH is driving off into the side canyons.  Incredible canyon roads to carve with views that are as unspoiled as when the natives were here alone.

Make the drive. Enjoy a bit of SoCal that few see.

LX Springfest..the big Chrysler party in SoCal

This is pretty wild.  A fan club dedicated to the current family of Chrysler large sedans, not the historic hemi's of old, but the new cars, the modern Hemi that put Chrysler back on peoples map.  Its old school large 4 door American sedans with big honkin' V8s.  What's not to love?

2015 Mustang Reveal; at Venice Beach

In December, after the L.A. Auto Show closed Ford pulled a fast one and held a reveal all over Los Angeles.  In fact it was a universal reveal in several cities around the world as the next generation Mustang will be a world car, not just specific to the US Market.  I made it to the Venice Beach reveal for Mustang enthusiasts, and they were besides themselves with the 2015 Mustang GT Ford showed at the Venice Beach.
 Vaughn Gittin Jr and his “hoonigan” car was there.  Vaughn talked to the group about the history of Ford and the Mustang.  How that the 2005 redesign got his attention and that is how he started driving them.  Vaughn has taken the car all over the world, and even though the car hasn’t been sold outside the U.S it was a car everyone knew.  It brought stares and attention everywhere it went. Vaughn talked about the performance upgrades in the last few years, and how it now has a base V6 putting out the same power a V8 did just a few years ago. He talked about how even with a live axel the car handled well.  He said on the Drift Circuit this car commands attention.
Ford isn’t saying much about the technical details, specs and performance coming with the 2015 Mustang.  They do have some basic on their website Ford.com.  The haven’t given a hard on sale date for the new car either.  One rep I spoke with did indicate “summerish 2014″. As a bit of trivia the first Mustang sold was on April 15, 1964 as a 1964 1/2 model.  With this being the 50th Anniversary of the Mustang I’d be willing to bet that April 15, 2014 as the sale date to commemorate the anniversary of the first one being sold.  Just a wild guess with no information to support.
What we do know is that the new Mustang is a bit longer, a bit wider in the rear and certainly has the wheels further out to the corners than the current generation.  The rear decklid is lower and much wider visually than the current model.  It was said by several at the Venice Beach reveal that their is more leg room in the rear that potentially makes this much more comfortable for those passengers.
Looking at the car  you know it is a Mustang, even without the large legacy Mustang embedded in the grill.  It has the long hood, short deck of the original.  It even has strongly sloped front and rear rooflines much like the original fastback. Other cues like the gills by the headlights as seen on the original is there.  One also knows that its a Ford, carrying the current Ford design language seen on the Fusion and new Fiestas, trapezoidal grill, windswept curves and artfully placed creases on the rear quarters.
Performance is something they are pretty silent about.  We do know that even though slightly bigger than the current model it lost 200 pounds.  May not seem like much but it would be enough to enhance the 0-60, cornering and final MPG numbers across the board.
Power-trains have changed some. Unchanged is the base 3.7L V6 remains and that puts out a healthy 305bhp.  The 2014 5.0L “coyote” V8 starts out at 420 bhp and is tuned upwards considerably in the aftermarket world, for 2015 power is up with reports being in the 450-500bhp range for the base trim.
The real news is the return of the legacy displacement 2.3L this time in EcoBoost trim.  Ford is pretty quiet on its power expectations in the Mustang, in the Lincoln MKC it puts out 275 bhp, but has 300 ft lbs of torque which is more than the 280 ft lbs of the current 3.7L V6.  On person I spoke to did say that in Mustang specs the 2.3L EcoBoost will put out more power than the MKC.  Its possible as the 2.0L Ecoboost in the Fiesta ST puts out quite a bit more power than it does in the Fusion.  We’ll have to wait and see.
Handling is going to change significantly with the 2015 Mustang.  The Mustang will dump its live axel that dates back to ancient history in favor of an independant rear suspension.  Something the Mustang saw only once several years back in an SVT limited run.  I have read reports that the new Mustang has had its handling tuned on the Nurburgring, but no facts or figures have been published on how fast it did it.  Yet.  Am certain at some point in time it will serve as bragging rights and marketing will publish and exploit.
Ford will give the Mustang a healthier dose of Technology with the 2015 Model.  Sync with MyFord and MyFordTouch with navigation will be available.  Things like blind spot monitoring will also be available.  Interestingly the 2015 Mustang GT they had for us to view and photograph has tons of buttons for heating/AC, Radio etc., that would be duplicates of what MyFord and MyFordTouch can do.  The duplicitious buttons are welcomed as its sometimes more practicle to simply turn a knob than go through voice commands for some things, well at least that has been my experience with my cars.

Fresh start...new host, new attitude

I ended my relationship with GoDaddy after some huge cost increases.  Killed off the original domain simply because the costs of doing business as blogger about cars and request to sell out as a "lifestyle blogger" to get access to cars from one of the biggest manufacturers I was working with just wasn't gonna happen.

In a short 3 year span we had over a million visits.  Nothing to sneeze at.  Cross links and referrals.  It was fun, but it was getting expensive to maintain.

After much internal debate, I've decided to resurrect the blog, maybe even re-post some of my biggest hits if I can figure out how to do it from saved html coding.  Short version is I love photoing, driving and just enjoying cars.  This newest iteration won't cost me a dime and I won't join a pay-to-play ranking site either.  I'll use my stats here as a guide post and talking point to get access to cars and stuff.  Its an avocation, a glorified hobby if you wish...not a job and certainly not answerable to anyone.

Let the adventures resume...