Strolling Through Ford GT Heaven at Concours and Coffee's Latest Event
This private event mobbed the Marconi Automotive Museum with all three “generations” of Ford’s revered sports car.
Ford GT enthusiasts are an interesting lot. Generally, they’re sort of a mix of hardcore fans of the brand and more generic lovers of exotic cars. Only half of them would be caught dead in a Mustang, but all of them have a deep reverence for what Ford accomplished with the GT40 and the street cars inspired by those race cars.
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We got this broad impression after we spent a morning with 30-plus GT and GT40 owners at the Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin, California, for Concours and Coffee’s Ford GT event. The private, invite-only shindig is the brainchild of organizers William Laporte and Michael Dirr, who created the C and C brand to cater to high-end enthusiasts with curated experiences.
The organizers reached out to us in advance of their second GT affair, and having never been, we said of course we’d come check it out. The event was everything you’d expect from a gathering of race cars and cars that look like they could race—which is to say, breathtaking everywhere you turned.
Let’s begin with the Ruffian Cars GT40—just as stunning now as it was when we featured it in 2022. Owned and built by Ruffian head Chris Ashton, this thing draws you in with its custom carbon-fiber-infused body, wild 3D-printed headlights, wide Signature Three centerlock wheels shod with Toyo Proxes R888Rs, and Toyota Cavalry Blue paint. It only gets crazier from there.
Ruffian rolled deep to the event. It also brought out its 1964 Galaxie 500 and 1967 FIA Mustang Ford project cars, both as immaculate as the GT40.
The main show area was bookended by two special three-car sections. On the far end was a special red, white, and blue selection of first-gen GTs representing America’s colors.
Salvador Meza owns the red car in the trio. Instead of keeping the factory supercharger and suspension, he went with a Heffner twin-turbo setup and KW coilovers with a lift kit. The car also rolls on HRE three-piece wheels.
Three cars on the opposite end of the lot represented the three iterations of Ford’s GT. Bill Nelson owns the white second-gen GT in the foreground, Sebastian Lefarja owns the black 2006 first gen, and David Miyasako owns the Gulf-liveried GT40 in the distance.
Miyasako’s Superformance replica was one of two with the unmistakable light blue and orange Gulf livery style colors. It rolls with a Roush 7.0-liter engine, a throwback to the Ford V-8 that came in those Holman Moody and Shelby-American race cars that raced in the mid 1960s.
Boden Autohaus updated its first-gen GT just ahead of the event. The black is gone, replaced by a muted green wrap from Inozetek. The car also now sports KW V3 coilovers, HRE 517 wheels, and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber.
Lawyer Natan Davoodi is the Lemon Guru (from LemonGuru.com), and his GT made an appearance at the Marconi. Davoodi’s car is a Holman Moody GT Mk II, which is still built to Le Mans race-ready condition today.
David Anders brought the second Gulf GT40 replica. The oil company began backing the JW Automotive Engineering GT team in the late 1960s, including for the ’68 and ’69 Le Mans 24-hour race wins.
Inside the Marconi, Concours and Coffee set up an indoor activation with one each of a first- and second-gen Ford GT. For the uninitiated, the museum is a nonprofit foundation with a collection of rare, exotic, and historic cars. The Marconi’s mission is to help raise awareness for at-risk youth in the community, as well as to give back through fundraisers, toy drives, and other events.
Organizers Laporte and Dirr plan to hold this event every year for as long as people are into it. GT owners who want to participate in the action next year, or anyone with a high-end classic or new car looking for their own curated affair, can reach the Concours and Coffee duo through their Instagram. If the Ford GT II event is any indication, owners will love the informal vibe and connecting with others like them, as well as the minimal committal that comes with Saturday meet-and-mingles like these. — Additional photography by Bob Allen
My dad was a do-it-yourselfer, which is where my interest in cars began. To save money, he used to service his own vehicles, and I often got sent to the garage to hold a flashlight or fetch a tool for him while he was on his back under a car. Those formative experiences activated and fostered a curiosity in Japanese automobiles because that’s all my Mexican immigrant folks owned then. For as far back as I can remember, my family always had Hondas and Toyotas. There was a Mazda and a Subaru in there, too, a Datsun as well. My dad loved their fuel efficiency and build quality, so that’s how he spent and still chooses to spend his vehicle budget. Then, like a lot of young men in Southern California, fast modified cars entered the picture in my late teens and early 20s. Back then my best bud and I occasionally got into inadvisable high-speed shenanigans in his Honda. Coincidentally, that same dear friend got me my first job in publishing, where I wrote and copy edited for action sports lifestyle magazines. It was my first “real job” post college, and it gave me the experience to move just a couple years later to Auto Sound & Security magazine, my first gig in the car enthusiast space. From there, I was extremely fortunate to land staff positions at some highly regarded tuner media brands: Honda Tuning, UrbanRacer.com, and Super Street. I see myself as a Honda guy, and that’s mostly what I’ve owned, though not that many—I’ve had one each Civic, Accord, and, currently, an Acura RSX Type S. I also had a fourth-gen Toyota pickup when I met my wife, with its bulletproof single-cam 22R inline-four, way before the brand started calling its trucks Tacoma and Tundra. I’m seriously in lust with the motorsport of drifting, partly because it reminds me of my boarding and BMX days, partly because it’s uncorked vehicle performance, and partly because it has Japanese roots. I’ve never been much of a car modifier, but my DC5 is lowered, has a few bolt-ons, and the ECU is re-flashed. I love being behind the wheel of most vehicles, whether that’s road tripping or circuit flogging, although a lifetime exposed to traffic in the greater L.A. area has dulled that passion some. And unlike my dear ol’ dad, I am not a DIYer, because frankly I break everything I touch.
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