Malibu: Pandemic - What Pandemic?

This is the latest in the our series on the casual car events held in Malibu every Sunday for the last few weeks. Wallace Wyss and Richard Bartholomew seem to go every week and continue to find interesting cars and people.

During this time of the virus with many of our loved events canceled it is casual gatherings like this that keeps us going.

Mike Gulett, Publisher

Text by Wallace Wyss –

Photos by Richard Bartholomew –

With the recent re-crackdown on California businesses, I debated going once again to Malibu on a Sunday to see if there was going to be an impromptu car show as there has been in June and July. Of course when I heard the weather report–92 degrees F in the Inland Empire and 72 degrees F in Malibu there was no contest.

And I was glad we (including photographer Richard Bartholomew) went there because there were two car shows going on simultaneously, near the Malibu pier — the unofficial one where there is no organizer, no sponsor, nobody to sign in with or sign out with.

Ford GT

And then there was a more traditional one run by “Fireball” Tim, a local promoter. He calls his event “Wheels and Waves”. That one you had to check in. And there was a loudspeaker and emcee and rock and roll. And that was as far from a European sports car show as you could get though the European car owners still did their own thing over in the adjoining lot across Cross Creek road.

Here’s what we saw at Fireball’s wing-ding:

– a two tone lavender Cadillac

– a pair of low riding coupes, both early ’50s with chopped tops and one of them every body panel changed. I would say the bodywork on that one would cost you $150,000.

The two low rider ’60’s customs coupes were both brought by a celebrity, Barry Weiss, from Storage Wars. The cars having names, one the ZEPHYR and the other the CADDY.

– an old Indy car which was actually newly built by a shop owner to advertise his skills

– a rat rod where every square inch was rusty, faded, totally assembled of junk parts

– a Prowler but with an added trunk and a little antique motorcycle on the back that was wholly made from scratch by the car owner

– a half dozen replica Cobras which should be ashamed to be in the same room as The Real Thing Bruce Meyer’s CSX 2001 race car

Shelby Cobra CSX 2001 and Bruce Meyer

The most fun discovery for me was one Batholomew couldn’t fathom-a ’58 or so Caddy convertible with a huge hand made luggage rack carrying a hand made suitcase. The owner, who has a thick French accent, told me he drives across the country in it, towing a huge trailer. I got a kick out of a Frenchman loving American luxury cars.

There’s nothing that makes you more proud to be an American than meeting a European who feels we build great classics.

Fortunately at the curated Fireball show, I saw hardly any muscle Mustangs or Japanese hot dogger cars, both of which there are too many to invite. Allow them and you need parking for 500!

Back at the regular parking lot for Malibu County Mart there was an ever changing display, the most sophisticated of which was a ’50s Alfa with a Zagato body, maybe this was an SZ. Then among newish cars it was a treat to see newer 2018 Mercedes Gullwing next to ’50s original and then some Lamborghinis with odd paint schemes. We don’t know if it was modern camouflage or just owners feeling a 200-mph Lambo needs something.

Alfa Romeo Zagato

Both events began to fade by 10:30 a.m. but we felt, for a temporary respite from the pandemic, we at least got to see what you pay for to see at indoor car shows.

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is an accomplished automotive artist accepting commissions. For a list of URLs showing his work, write mendirt7@gmail.com.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Richard Bartholomew is an artist and photographer based in Southern California. Visit his YouTube channel here. He is open to interesting consignments and can be reached at zeroagenow@aol.com

I think this dog was customized. He seemed pretty happy. Maybe dogs have their own concours and we humans don’t know about it.