A word of advice: Go easy on the caffeine at Canepa Cars & Coffee. There’s already enough stimulants of the automotive kind when Bruce Canepa hosts the monthly open house at his automotive wonderland.    -Story and photos by Rick Voegelin

 

Canepa and his staff open the doors to his eponymous Canepa complex in Scotts Valley, California on the second Saturday of every month from April through October. There are no barred doors, no off-limits signs, and no burly security guards admonishing visitors to stay behind the velvet ropes. Enthusiasts are welcome to wander through the glistening showroom, the racing and restoration shops, and the superb motorsports museum. In return, the guests treat the hardware with reverence and the place abounds with good vibes.

This laid-back approach attracts the right crowd, and no crowding (as our British friends would say). The parking lot in front of Canepa’s becomes a freestyle auto show on designated Saturdays. Eclectic is the theme; you’re likely to find a ’56 Chevy sedan in black suede parked alongside a bleeding-red Ferrari Modena.

The Canepa building formerly housed hard-drive manufacturer Seagate. Seven years ago, Bruce was in the right place at the right time and scored the real estate deal of the century, re-purposing the 70,000 square feet to create a stunning environment for high-end automobiles. Think Ultimate Garage raised to an exponential power.

Situated on the central California coast near the newly minted millionaires of Silicon Valley and the Old Money of Carmel and Monterey, the Canepa group of companies attracts an affluent clientele. At any given time, there are more than 100 significant automobiles in residence, and the staff includes former Formula 1, Indy, and Trans-Am mechanics who bring decades of experience, specialized skills, and the racing spirit to work every day.

Canepa will accommodate the pilgrims heading to the Monterey Peninsula for Car Week by opening the doors on August 10-20, kicking off with the next Cars & Coffee klatch on August 10. For directions and details, check out www.canepa.com. And if you can’t make it in person, join us for a virtual tour here on Mac’s Motor City Garage.

 

The Canepa Campus is the home of a wide range of enterprises that include concours restorations, vintage race car preparation, custom vehicles, aero-slick transporters, and a motorsports museum. A monthly open house sees the parking lot transformed into an impromptu car show that attracts hot rods, restorations, and exotic cars of all descriptions.

 

Bruce Canepa is the company’s namesake and the gracious host of Cars & Coffee. A lifelong racer and hardcore car guy, Canepa now channels his need for speed into vintage racing, where he wheels machinery ranging from Can-Am monsters to Trans-Am sedans. He’s slated to drive several cars at the upcoming Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, including Miles Collier’s priceless Grand Sport Corvette.

 

How do you check out a new pair of KKK turbochargers on a customer’s championship-winning Can-Am Porsche 917-10 vintage race car? If you are Bruce Canepa, you take it for a test drive on Scotts Valley Blvd. and make an acceleration run on Highway 17. Subsequent reports of UFO sightings in Scotts Valley were numerous.

 

Canepa’s is a popular destination for Bay Area car clubs. The Pacific Region Ferrari Club turned out in force for the July Cars & Coffee gathering. Canepa gave the group a guided tour of the facility and explained the challenges of restoring the first Duesenberg passenger car ever built.

 

The Canepa restoration shop is an enormous hall with space to work on dozens of vehicles. Formerly a distribution center for Seagate hard drives, the space was gutted and reconfigured to become every gearhead’s dream shop. The double doors in upper right lead to a state-of-the-art downdraft paint booth.

 

Immense black-and-white photo murals of historic race cars, heroic drivers, and legendary circuits set the scene for Canepa Motorports, the vintage racing division. Several exceptional cars were being prepared for the upcoming historic races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on August 16-18.

 

Every car guy eventually faces the problem of too many cars and not enough space. Not every car guy has Canepa’s solution: high-rise storage that stacks 16 cars on the same footprint as four. Cars on the rack include a Jaguar XJR-5, a Cobra, a Greenwood wide-body Corvette, a NASCAR Grand Prix built by Group 44, and a passel of Porsches.

 

Corvette will be the featured marque at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Renunion. This classic B/Production solid-axle 1957 Corvette originally driven by Corvette aces Dave MacDonald and Joe Freitas will be one of the stars at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

 

Denny Hulme drove this stunning McLaren M8D to victory in the final three rounds of the 1970 Can-Am series, scoring wins at Donnybrooke, Laguna Seca, and Riverside.

 

Canepa does open wheels, too. Bruce shoes his spectacular D-A Lubricant Special Kurtis-Offy Indy car in vintage races.

 

The meek may inherit the Earth, but they won’t drive this UOP Shadow Can-Am race car. Imagine a go-kart powered by a thumping 494ci big-block Chevrolet and you’ve got the idea. In the background is a Bugatti Veyron, a former resident of the Petersen Automotive Museum and the first Veyron in the U.S. Canepa reports that the Veyron really will run 200+ mph in street trim. Please don’t ask how he knows this.

 

Where else will you find a Joest Racing Sachs Porsche 962 being prepped alongside a pumpkin-orange Camaro?

 

The Canepa crew is completing a total rebuild and restoration of the first Duesenberg passenger car (serial No. 001) for the Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance. This enormous automobile was originally custom built for the founder of the Dole pineapple empire in Hawaii. Alongside it is Canepa’s personal project, a 23-window VW Samba bus that is being outfitted with a complete Porsche 930 Turbo suspension and a 500 hp twin-turbo engine. Are you ready for a 170 mph Microbus?

 

This levitating Lamborghini Countach is just one of the exotic sports cars being worked on in the Canepa shop. You probably won’t see this at your neighborhood Jiffy Lube.

 

Porsche built only a few hundred examples of the Porsche 959 supercar. With a twin-turbo 2.8-liter flat six delivering 600 horsepower and 540 ft/lbs of torque through all four wheels, the 959 was a very formidable automobile. There were four of these rare Porsches in residence at Canepa during our visit.

 

The Canepa Motorsports Museum celebrates an eclectic assortment of racing cars in a relaxed setting. This pair of Porsches sets the tone: a 917-10 campaigned by Gelo Racing in the Interserie, and a Rothmans Porsche 962C built as part of the factory team. The 962’s all-star driver roster included Jacky Ickx, Jochen Mass, Hans Stuck, and Derek Bell.

 

Who can resist falling in love with a Porsche 917K – especially one in classic Gulf Racing colors? This magnificent example of the marque won the 1970 Daytona 24-hour race with drivers Pedro Rodriguez, Leo Kinnunen, and Brian Redman.

 

Canepa competes in historic Trans-Am races with this patriotically painted Penske Javelin originally raced by Mark Donohue and Peter Revson. It finished second in the 1970 T-A championship with wins at Bridgehampton, Road America, and St. Jovite.

 

Strange bedfellows in the Canepa Motorsports Museum: a Richard Petty Torino and a Fiat Abarth. Although Petty Blue had long been associated with Plymouth, Petty switched his allegiance in 1969 when Ford introduced the aerodynamically enhanced Torino Cobra. This Holman-Moody beauty (chassis No. HM890049) is reported to have propelled Petty to the winner’s circle at the 1969 Motor Trend 500 at Riverside Raceway (RIP).

 

Canepa has a deep appreciation for traditional hot rods. Alex Xydias’ slick So-Cal Speed Shop Coupe has a place of honor in his museum. Powered by a supercharged flathead Ford, the record-setting coupe hit 172 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1953.

 

The Tyrrell P34 Six Wheeler might have been a footnote in Formula 1 history—but the oddball design turned out to be very competitive. Patrick Depailler was runner-up in the museum’s  Chassis no. 2 in the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix behind his teammate Jody Scheckter as the Tyrrells scored a surprising 1-2 finish with 12 wheels.

 

Canepa’s mighty Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo recalls the Golden Age of IMSA GTP road racing. Capable of generating 8,000 pounds of downforce and propelled by 900 turbocharged horses, Chassis 90-06 was capable of prodigious performance. It finished second in the season-ending 1992 Del Mar Grand Prix, Nissan’s last hurrah before Dan Gurney’s Toyotas overwhelmed the series.

 

This 1961 Cooper T56 Mark II Formula Junior brings a bit of celebrity to the museum. It was raced by actor Steve McQueen, the “King of Cool,” in 1962. McQueen’s impressive performance earned an invitation to test for Cooper’s factory team, but McQueen decided to pursue his acting career in Hollywood instead of racing in Europe.

 

The Canepa showroom is awash with milestone motorcycles and desirable automobiles like this Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. This low-mileage, one-owner car could be yours . . . for a price.

 

If you would prefer something for vintage racing, consider this 1959 Lister Costin. Powered by a Chevrolet small-block and wearing aerodynamic bodywork designed by Frank Costin, this was the prototype for the 13 Lister Costins that were built.

 

Radial tires were a novelty in 1970. To publicize this new technology, BF Goodrich commissioned Jerry Titus to build and campaign this Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, christened the “Tire Bird” in deference to its corporate sponsor. This Trans-Am really did compete in the SCCA Trans-Am series, along with appearances at Sebring and Daytona. The car is powered by a small-block Chevrolet because SCCA regulations permitted the “Canadian Pontiac” engine.

 

The Ferrari 333 SP marked Ferrari’s return to sports car racing in the then-new IMSA World Sports Car (WSC) specification after a 20-year absence. Developed and built by Dallara, this 333SP competed in Sebring, Daytona, and Le Mans from 1995 to 1997. Today it carries the distinctive colors of Giampiero Moretti’s MOMO team.

 

Car owner Cotton Owens and driver Buddy Baker teamed up to win the 1970 Southern 500 with this winged Dodge Charger Daytona. A product of the Aero Wars that raged in NASCAR in the late 60s, this Hemi-powered winged warrior qualified on the front row for the Daytona 500 and recorded the first race lap at over 200 mph in NASCAR history at Talladega.