Saturday morning as I pulled into the parking lot at Cars and Coffee / Irvine, and made my way towards the row where I usually park, I was greeted by the lunar eclipse bathed,  silhouettes of two Truspeed Porsche GT3 cup cars parked diagonally in formation, anchoring an all Porsche row. Mixed in amongst the row were several Porsche 356’s , a couple early 1960’s short wheelbase 911’s, a Porsche 924, 914-6, and a handful of 911’s from the 1970’s, ’80’s and 90’s.  And aligned like bookends, opposite the cup cars were two matching speed yellow Porsche 996’s: one a tricked-out 996 GT3 and the other, a 2003 GT2.

Now back to the two GT3 cup cars…

Car # 45 (below), the Truspeed / Privacy Star Porsche GT3 cup car, is the 2011 World Challenge cup series winner, as driven by Patrick Long, the only American driver with Porsche factory driver status…

The car below, the # 29 Porsche GT3 cup car, was fresh from its second place finish at the 25 hours of Thunderhill race the previous weekend. It still wore its acquired patina of race rubber, bugs and dust across its exterior, as evidence of the previous weekends battle. The strange luggage rack looking devices spanning the front hood as I found out, and as were demonstrated, were high output LED light bars, perfect for lighting up a racetrack in the dead of night. These two light bars combined with the headlights and dual sets of driving and cornering lights recessed into the front nose, were more than sufficient for  lighting up a dark racetrack, and getting the attention of the driver immediately ahead on the track.

After I finished shooting the Porsches, I noticed a crowd gathered around a low black coupe parked in the end space of the smaller perpendicular parking lot.  As I made my way through the crowd, I saw a badge on the nose of the car that read Scion. As I got closer, I recognized the car as the new collaboration between Toyota and Subaru, with the Scion being Toyota’s version.  It also wore some subtle Greddy graphics displayed about the car. The badge on the back identified this car as an FR-S model, although the Subaru model will wear BRZ badging.  Out back, the blue tipped, dual titanium exhaust  dominated the view, framing the rear diffuser panel. After a few minutes, the hood was opened up to reveal a Subaru boxer motor, and a few go fast parts, such as the purple anodized, front shock strut adjustment plates. The car appeared to have been lowered, and was riding on a set of silver Rays wheels, wrapped in 245/35ZR-19 rubber. Given the crowd around this car and the buzz it was generating, it sure looks like Toyota has a hit on its hands…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was walking away from the Scion, I caught a glimpse of a white Porsche moving through the parking lot. As I got closer, I realized this was the elusive white Porsche GT3 RS 4.0 that I had heard about the previous week, making its way out of the parking lot.

 

 

So far I have been lucky enough to have seen three GT3 RS 4.0’s since October, out of a total of 600 produced. Now only 597 to go…

(All photos by the author)