Canepa Motorsports Museum review and pictures (Part 1)

As I fell asleep last night, I counted in my head the number of car museums I have visited.  I have been to nine.  Some have magnificent collections of rare and extremely polished cars costing many millions of dollars.  Others have dusty and neglected displays that were just plain sad.  Canepa Motorsports Museum in Scotts Valley, just a few miles north of Santa Cruz on Highway 17, is, in my opinion, one of the best museums I have visited.

It is wonderful because of the cars.  They may not be the most expensive or have the most history or provenance.  Rather, they are all cars with the perfect balance of beauty, function, and animal magnetism.  Every guy, whether a car nut or not, has coveted at least half of the cars in the collection.

Presentation also makes this museum world-class.  The cars are flawless.  There is not a speck of dust on any of them, and yet they don't look overdone.  The lighting is also perfect.  At the Imperial Palace collection in Las Vegas, cheap fluorescent bulbs (!) are used.  At the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, everything is pitch black, with the exception of sharply focused 2000 watt light bulbs flooding the cars.

The other minor touch that added to the experience was the floor.  Yes, the floor.  I have no idea what the material is.  It may be just painted concrete.  Visually, it felt like a warm, soothing, hard wood floor.  It softened the loud and powerful machines which sat on top of it.  It made the overall experience complete.

Enough chit-chat.  On with the show!

The museum is on an anonymous street in the middle of nowhere.  You would never guess what was inside this modern yet non-descript building.

When we pulled up on a Saturday morning, we thought it was closed.  There were only two cars in the parking lot.  Fortunately, it wasn't.  I would suggest calling first to make sure it is open though.

I thought the first floor was the museum.  It wasn't.  It's just the showroom!  I came to see the Porsche 959s, which Canepa is famous for.  And that's exactly what I ran to first.

This is one of two Porsche 959s for sale.  It's a 1988 U.S.-legal model selling for $475,000.

Though the place is definitely Porsche-centered, there was a black Ferrari Testarossa.  This is a shot of the window with the standard Schedoni luggage in the background.

Trademark Testarossa mirror.

There is no discrimination here.  American muscle cars make a strong presence, along with a sprinkling of Datsun/Nissans.  This is a 1969 Dodge Hemi Charger R/T, which is about as long as the garden hose in my patio.

This is my favorite American race car of all time, the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona.  It's got a 426 cubic inch (7,000 cc) engine and the iconic rear spoiler.

This 1970 Porsche 914-6 GT placed second in its class in the 1970 Nurburgring 1000km.  

This is the other 959.  It's an S model.  Only 29 were produced.  They have roll cages and special suspensions, seats, and seat belts.

This is the end of my tour of the showroom on the first floor.  I have only described a fraction of the cars.  There are also a 289 Cobra, a 300SL roadster, an AMX Javelin, Mustangs, a Pantera, a Fairlady Z,....

(Part 2 is here.)