by Wallace Wyss –
Photos by Richard Bartholomew
Trancas is an old farm converted to a shopping center, with some care to preserving the country flavor. It is located at the extreme North end of Malibu, California maybe ten miles North of the Malibu pier, a good half hour’s drive from Santa Monica.
Go beyond the market and you will be on an oceanside road aimed at Oxnard.
The Cars ‘n Coffee at Trancas is a bit different than the ones held further south down by Pepperdine College. For one thing there’s more expensive cars, at least at this one I saw a Ferrari SWB 250GT, a Ferrari 275GTB 4-cam, at least two Daytonas, two Ferrari 365GTC/4s, a 2017 Ford GT driven by a certain white haired TV comedian, and my favorite, an Iso Grifo Corsa A3C (this car won its class at Le Mans in 1965).
The Iso is in the collection of Bruce Meyer, a Beverly Hills collector and real estate man, who chose this car to champion though heretofore he was known as “Mr. Ferrari.”
The crowd was impressed by the quad Weber setup on the pushrod iron block Chevy, an engine that seems oh so unsophisticated compared to a ohc aluminum block Ferrari V12 until you see it in this car (and he had a picture on the car showing it winning its class at LeMans, beating Ferraris, so there Ferrari guys, take that….).
The nice thing about Trancas is that it has an overflow lot in the back holding about 30 more cars so those who don’t arrive at 7 am to park in the main lot can park there. The whole event is timed so it starts tailing off in arrivals about 11 am.
The Trancas event is run by Andy Cohen, not the gray haired TV guy but the Andy Cohen who founded Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories. He had two of his own cars there, a Ford Woodie wagon and a black Ferrari 365GTS.
There’s also a nice coffee kiosk inside the market and lots of good (but expensive) baked goodies.
I would say this event is superior to the other Cars & Coffee I have been to because it had more of a party atmosphere and good eats available. At one point I noticed a high buzz of conversation, as if everyone was at one swell garden party.
I was hoping no one would do a burnout departure but one guy with a Lambo, his car clad in gold, couldn’t prevent himself from roaring off at great speed, and I ask you—isn’t having a Lambo clad in gold getting enuff attention, you still have to wind it out to 8000 rpm in your departure?
Don’t get the idea there was all Ferraris. There was Lambos, a couple McLarens, a couple Bentley convertibles, a hotted up Mercedes, ten or more Porsches, and a beautiful blue Austin Healey with a metal tonneau cover over the passenger side as if to say “this car is all business.” Some were real oddball, two Karmann Ghias, and an Auburn Speedster replica, and a couple British tiny cars, one promoting an upcoming auction.
There was nothing for sale there, didn’t even see a “For Sale” sign, and they do a fairly good job of discouraging ordinary cars from parking where the C & C cars are, though I am not sure how. But didn’t see any hot rodded Camaros or Mustangs, so this is more of crème-de-la-crème event, though everybody was wearing very casual clothes.
I attended not only as a reporter of La Dolce Vita but to hand out posters promoting film rights availability to my action thriller novel Ferrari Hunters and, even though I couldn’t quiz recipients about their show biz connections (often handing it to them on the fly), I figure anyone driving an exotic worth, say $300K on up, driving in Malibu, automatically qualifies them as Somebody Important in My World, N’est-ce pas?
I wore my Cannes film festival baseball hat, an official Ferrari shirt, and shorts and looked for starlets to chat up about casting but what delectable prospects I saw seemed to be heavily guarded on all sides….
See ‘ya at the next one.
More photos are at this link.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss promises to make a different poster for his Ferrari novel, Ferrari Hunters, each month for this event.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER Richard Bartholomew is a fine artist from Riverside, Ca
As with the original Irvine, CA gathering John Clinard worked so hard to keep quaint and manageable, often shunning inevitable media opportunities which upon exposing the event drove more and more to the site in following weeks…
…I love your window into this event but hope the same thing does not happen with the Trancas group as friends have worked very hard to keep hold of the event.
Inevitably, a good thing gets bigger and catches on no matter how you try to keep it a secret. I wish everyone the best.
Trancas was a fav beach hang out for Valley high schoolers in the ’50s–more ’40 Fords and ’41 Chevys.
Thanks for the memories.
A fun show indeed…and driving down the PCH ain’t bad either. Thanks for the “shout out” for the Bizzarrini…a car that needs more respect and understanding. It was driven to Le Mans by Gioto himself and driven back home to Italy after finishing in the top 10 and winning its class. Had Mr Bizzarrini had the finances to build and homologate them as GT cars it would have been in the middle of the epic battle with Ford and Ferrari. NEVER LIFT….
Ahh, my favorite cars on the planet since first standing in front of Michael Gulett’s Bizzarrini 5300 back in the days of launching this fine My Car Quest Blog. If I ever find myself a billionaire, surely my first course of action will be to hunt down the current owner and buy the silver beauty.
And why did Mike Gulett sell that perfect Bizzarrini ?
Beautiful cars!