Cars and Coffee Mississippi Gulf Coast

On October 1st, a thread popped up on the South Central section of the Ferrari Forum which was entitled, “Cars & Coffee (Gulf Coast - Biloxi/Gautier, MS)”. Given that the South Central geographic area comprises Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, seeing something Ferrari-related just thirty minutes from my house happens about as often as Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea show up at my front door to sing “Booty”.

Which is to say, um, never.

No, I live in possibly the single worst state for exotic cars. And before you say “Kentucky!”, know that someone very rich just bought the first LaFerrari in Atlanta and had it delivered to the Bluegrass state. And at an MSRP of $1.69 Million, that’s a lot of KFC chicken wings!

I could scarcely believe what I was reading and my eyes devoured every word as if I had received a winning letter from Publisher’s Clearing House:

”After some speculations and planning, a community of exotic owners over on the Gulf Coast area thought it would be nice to turn their annual meets into something bigger and more meaningful... Cars & Coffee! This is the first ever establishment of Cars & Coffee down here on the Gulf Coast (Biloxi/Gautier MS area) so mark this down on your calendar and come on out!”

Naturally, this sounded great but it was still over two months away and our coastal weather is about as unpredictable as Kim Jong-un. Until the date drew closer, it could potentially be postponed---or even cancelled outright---by a December deluge.

One week out, I replied to the forum thread that the weather looked great and inquired if everyone was still planning on attending. The person that started the thread replied, “We will be there at 6:45AM to setup and hangout.”

On Thursday after work, I decided to brave the cold and wash my car so I could devote Saturday to detailing the interior and exterior. I proceeded to spend roughly three hours washing and drying it in the dark before securing it under a car cover. On Friday morning, I attempted to drive the del Sol only to realize that the cold and lack of use had killed it’s battery. In fact, the battery was so dead, it wouldn’t even respond to a jump-start. Frantically, I tried our little Suzuki truck (which usually never leaves our thirty acres) but it’s battery was also deader than Elvis. It was at this point that I realized I had no other choice but to drive my spotless Saturn, thereby effectively throwing away the previous night’s three hours of cleaning. Naturally, this was quite frustrating, and I’m sure people two states across heard my screaming Tourette's Syndrome-string of expletives. As such, this twist of fate gave me the unique opportunity to hand wash and dry my car all over again, thereby presenting me with the dubious honor for the cleanest car ever washed twice in twenty-four hours. 

Come Saturday, I set about detailing the engine bay down to such extremes as repainting some of the more visible silver and black bolts and slathering the interior and exterior in approximately fifty gallons of Armor-All. This fanatical level of concentration extended to even cleaning and Armor-Alling the wheel wells. I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever washed the wheel wells, and this was the first.

Fortunately, unseasonably warm weather was the forecast for the event which meant our Christmas Cars and Coffee was one of the only gatherings in the nation that could be attended in shorts and t-shirts without fear of frostbite. The weather was perfect, proving that God loves Ferraris, and my alarm clock awakened me abruptly at 6:00 AM. I’m not a morning person, so I typically get up early on Sundays about as  often as Halley’s Comet passes by. Nevertheless, early Sunday morning drives are their own reward, as many of the idiots that clog our country’s byways are still blissfully sleeping off the previous night’s inebriation. This allowed me ample opportunity to drive my car at 120 mph thereby killing polar bears, destroying the Amazon, and depleting our natural resources even faster than I normally do! In fact, it was at this felonious velocity that I passed a blue Mazda RX-8 whom I was sure was also on his way to Cars and Coffee. But given the fact that I never saw it again, I can only assume that he was either really early, or really late, for something else.

Once I entered Gautier’s city limits, I clamped down on the 40 mph speed limit faster than a politician on a bribe. The city of Gautier had fought the legislation allowing the Cars and Coffee event tooth-and-nail, so it was no secret they were expecting us. The last thing I needed was some rookie trying to make an example of me.

 

Cars and Coffee officially kicked off at 8:00 AM, but I arrived a little after 7:45. Anyone who’s ever been to one knows that if you’re on-time, than you’re already late. For instance, to get the best parking spots at Caffeine and Octane in Atlanta, participants usually line-up around 6:00 AM.     

 

The small parking lot held spaces for 80 cars, but over 180 on social media had pledged to show up. As I backed into a parking spot, I saw the exotics had already arrived. They were parked in the east corner, and the unwritten rule was that area was reserved solely for them. Among them was a McLaren MP4-12C, Lamborghini Gallardo, Dodge Viper, and three Nissan GT-Rs.

 

It immediately became evident that the neurotic amount of time spent preparing my car was unnecessary, as it garnered very little attention compared to the exotics in attendance. Regardless, I’d like to let the record show that my $25,000 Saturn was indeed cleaner than the $250,000 McLaren.  Previously, I had joked that my Saturn would be the only one there, but I was proven wrong by someone who brought a trashed-out, four-door Saturn Aura. Looking like it hadn’t been washed since a Republican was in office, it was boldly parked in the lineup between a new $75,000 Camaro Z/28 and a stunning Acura NSX. Indeed, there was no way I could hope to compete with it and the set of Pep Boys fog lights haphazardly screwed to the front grill.

 

Despite the fact that it was the Ferrari forum that brought me here, there were only three present and all were V8 models--- a 2000 F360, a 2005 F430 and a black F360 Spider that curiously showed up near the end. The F430 still bore temporary tags and I happened to strike up a conversation with the owner of the F360, Richard Weavil, a successful property developer from Mobile, AL. As fate would have it, we both knew B.J. Lyon, and our exchange took off from there. He was impressed by my encyclopedic knowledge of Ferraris which I demonstrated when I noticed that his car had been purchased from Foreign Cars Italia. Taking me for a neophyte, he elaborated that it was an authorized Ferrari dealer in Greensboro, North Carolina. I then proceeded to tell him I knew it well, and that it was where Bob Rapp had purchased the first Enzo (and a yellow one, at that) delivered to North America in 2003. I further amazed him when I correctly guessed that his louder-than-stock exhaust was from an aftermarket Capristo muffler. He simply shook his head in disbelief when he lifted the engine bonnet to show it off. I told him my one reservation about buying a Ferrari similar to his F360 was the horror stories about maintenance costs and reliability problems. He didn’t deny that they weren’t possible, but stated that despite his being a relatively high-mileage example (with 40K on the odometer) he’d had very few problems. Richard volunteered that the secret was finding a good local mechanic who could troubleshoot those issues. Otherwise, it would require loading on a flatbed and hauling to Ferrari of Atlanta which was an expensive and time-consuming process. He recounted a similar experience where he said the car was just running awful. Upon inspection by his mechanic, it was determined with a temperature gun to the mufflers that the left bank of cylinders was running a lot hotter than the right. That established that the Mass Airflow Sensor was the culprit and a new one was an easy fix. But he cautioned that even though he saved a small fortune due to bypassing the dealer, the Bosch sensor was still a whopping $975. In comparison, when we had to replace the MAF unit on our 2006 Ford Freestyle it was less than $100, and the Ferrari actually uses two, one for each bank of cylinders. 

The “oddity” of the group, and that’s saying a lot when there was also a gold Lamborghini with “MO DILLA” emblazoned across the front windshield and a hot rod with a plywood roof, was a 1984 Fiero possessing a 350 V8. Boasting an “Antique Car” license plate and enough stickers to make any ten year-old jealous, the Fiero had a handmade sign with such inspirational messages as “Dream it”, “DO IT!” and, of course, “Team USA”.  Sadly, I never spotted motivational speaker Tony Robbins nor did I have any idea he was touring the country in a thirty year-old Pontiac.   

It was unanimously decided that the award for “Best-in-Show on an Unlimited Budget” was the bright-orange McLaren MP4-12C. Regrettably, I didn’t get any pictures of it because it was always mobbed more than 1 Direction at an elementary school. But the enthusiastic owner, a short man who could pass for Danny Devito’s brother, was not afraid to drive it. He bragged that with 30,000 miles on it, his 12C was the highest mileage in the world. And he started that by driving it the 500-miles from Park Place McLaren in Dallas back to his home in Louisiana. He claims the first set of tires lasted nearly 25,000 miles, and then produced a small notebook where he’d jotted down the fuel economy for every fill-up. Amazingly, the averages were in the mid 20’s and this is despite the spirited driving which included him hitting 180 mph past a barn on a rural road. “I could have gone faster,” he chuckled “but I was afraid of a deer running out in front of me.” Fair enough, I suppose if anything could be accused of sending a deer into a frenzy it would be an alien-looking object, the color of the sun, shrieking down the highway at 264 feet per second. He then raised the driver’s door skyward for a better view of the carpeted monocoque tub and carbon-fiber cabin. The mile-wide sill looked like an obstacle for an Olympic hurdler, but he claimed the 12C is a real sweetheart in traffic, with none of the fussiness usually attributed to a super car. It might not have been the fastest (that honor went to the 1000 hp Nissan GT-R with the questionably-colored blue wheels and mufflers) but it was certainly the most complete package.

“Best-in-Show on a Budget” went to the red 2015 Camaro Z/28. Granted, $75,000 ain’t pocket change, but then again, this isn’t your Uncle Sal’s Camaro. Nope, this is the Chevy that actually matched-- and even outpaced-- the million-dollar Porsche 918 Spyder on several sections of Virginia International Raceway during Car and Driver’s 2014 Lightning Lap. A lot of the credit rests on the shoulders of the Z/28’s enormous tires (the fronts alone are 305/30, a staggering 11-inches across). Shod with ultra-sticky Pirelli Trofeo R rubber, these tires barely qualify as street-legal. And with an 80 tread-wear that’s thinner than a bible page, don’t expect them to last more than a few thousand miles or a couple track days. Also, that gorgeous black front splitter means a trip to Wal-Mart, McDonalds, or anywhere else you might encounter a speed bump, is strictly off-limits. 

In absentia was a new lime-colored Dodge Challenger with the “Hellcat” package. The local owner recently picked the car up, and had promised online to display it at Cars and Coffee, but was a no-show. It would have been amusing because nothing says “green” and eco-friendly like a 707 horsepower supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 that gets 13 mpg. In fact, some of the Hellcat’s rumored colors that didn’t make the cut were “Catch Me Copper”, “Unforeseeable Fuchsia” and “Statutory Grape”.  Also conspicuously missing was a single Cobalt SS or Neon SRT-4, usual staples of car meets. And aside from an old truck with a “Honk if you love Dick” bumper sticker (that advertised a restaurant called Dirty Dick’s) and two Honda Civics with fuzzy stick-on antlers and large red noses, the event was thankfully rice-free.    

 

Overall, the inaugural Cars and Coffee was a resounding success. By 9:00 AM, all the parking spaces were full and the cars trickling in had to be directed to the overflow lot across the street. As they began to leave around 11:00, many practiced the celebratory departure seen at Cars and Coffee events across America. That is, a smoky exit with the tires spinning and the engine howling. Naturally, this is a highlight of the show and we initially thought the police presence might put a kibosh on that finale. But miraculously, the traffic cops stood by as one after another lit up the rear tires. Or, as in the case with the 1000 hp Nissan GT-R, all four tires. 

There’s been no word on when, or if, another Cars and Coffee is planned. However, given the enthusiastic outpouring, I can’t imagine there not being at least one in 2015. Gentlemen, start your engines!