Scottsdale Cars & Coffee – Feb, 2013

It’s been about two years since I’ve last attended a Cars & Coffee here in Scottsdale, and it was long overdue. Like I had remembered, it was a great event full of exotics and high-end collectable cars of all different makes and models. There was a great variety of cars ranging from some Lamborghinis and many others. And luckily in Arizona it is perfect weather for being outside at about 75 degrees and sunny all day long!

Taking pictures at these kind of events is always a little challenging, as there are so many people its nearly impossible to get a unobstructed shot and the lighting can be a bit harsh with nothing to block the sunlight at all. I’ve learned to not be a perfectionist and just try to grab a quick shot whenever I have it, and then try to crop out as many onlookers as possible afterwards. I also played around with some focal Black & White shots below, which I think came out kind of cool as well.

My favorite part is the variety of cars – you have a 430 Scudera parked next to a Jaguar E-type. It’s a group of “car guys” (and gals) that all get together and don’t care what brand, style, or car club anyone is affiliated with – it’s a free and open event for people to just enjoy cars, no matter what their preference is.

I’ve always had a soft spot for classic Jaguars as that was one of my Grandpa’s favorite cars (he had two E-types and an XK120), and it was really cool to see a few pristine examples of each in attendance. This car is definitely on my bucket list if I can ever afford one…

I was also impressed with the Porsche turn-out, including several GT3RSs and even a GT2RS. They seemed to be affiliated with GMG Racing which was really cool, as they are a shop I’m quite familiar with thanks to their Audi R8 LMS program (and awesome presence at Big So Cal Euro a few months ago).

Another car that really grabbed my attention is the CLK Black Series, as you don’t see many of these and I just love factory built widebody cars. This particular example was showroom clean and definitely a treat to see in person…

My favorite car goes to this Mercedes 300SL – not only is this car extremely rare and beautiful, but this particular car has been driven. It had a roll bar and racing harnesses installed, and the car had plenty of stickers from historic racing and cruises it had been entered in. I’m a firm believer that classic and exotic cars are meant to be driven, no matter how rare they are, and that it’s a crime to have a nice car and never fully appreciate how well it performs. Kudos to the owner of this car for driving the car so much and truly enjoying it.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking (high res versions on Flickr, btw) but there were a lot of great cars I didn’t get the chance to photograph either due to the crowds, lack of time, bad lighting or just being too ADD to try to capture everything. The rest of the pictures are some other cars that stood out to me in some way or another that I managed to get a decent picture of. Enjoy!