Goodguy's Rod Shop Tour '08

Every year before the BIG Goodguys West Coast Nationals in Pleasanton, Goodguys puts together the “Hot Rod Week” where, each day Rodder’s gather in the morning and head off for a tour of some of the local rod shops. One day may cover the North Bay, the next day the Peninsula, etc. On August 20th we all headed south on Highway 17 to Canepa Designs. Now Lynne and I left in about the middle of the pack, and it was quit a sight to see all these Street Rods & Hot Rods mingling amongst the early morning rush our traffic. We all climbed the windy road up into the Santa Cruz Mountains until we reached Scotts Valley and pulled into Canepa’s huge facility. We all piled into the main showroom at the front of the building where we “ooh’d and aah’d” over Ferrari F40s, famous old Hot Rods, restored Muscle Cars, and the list goes on! Then it was announced that there would be a tour of the “museum” up stairs. There’s a museum up stairs? Well, the first car inside the hall up stairs was the Greer/Black/Prudohme sling shot dragster. Cool, I like this museum already. The rest of the room was full of cool rods, and famous racecars. Then a walk out the back door on to a catwalk (above the shop floor). WOW! This place is huge! There’s about 6 Porsche 959’s down there, and I count about three-gull wing Mercedes Benz! Ferrari GTOs, GTP cars, even a McLaren. What an awesome shop!

Next it was a trip down Highway One to a shop in Monterey. Don Orosco’s shop has turned out some award winning cars, including some Pebble’s Beach winners! Between what pulled-up out front, and what Don had in his stables, there was plenty of eye candy everywhere! Every corner of this shop had some interesting bits & pieces in it! For the few of us who wondered back to the “storage rack” room, all you could do was stand there with dropped jaw and wondered how many days it would take you to go through all the boxes.

This is the second year I’ve done the Rod Shop Tour thing, and it won’t be the last! Lynne and I plan to add at least one day of the “Hot Rod Week” to our busy August schedule every year! Special thanks to Canepa Design, and Don Orosco for opening the doors for all us rodders, and to Goodguys for making it happen each year. What did I do today? I had a great time!