8/5/13
Heading Back East

After a fun filled weekend in Elkhart Lake, it was time for us to head home. Andrew and his son were flying home, shipping the Daytona out, while Mark was going to drive his Queen back down to Maryland. Since we were out in the Midwest, Sam and I decided to make a couple of side trips to see some private collections and talk some more cars!

The first stop was a small town in Illinois to visit the Coadys. Tom Coady and his sons have all been long time car guys with a substantial collection of Maseratis and Ferraris. Shaun, Tom’s son, joined us for a couple days in Wisconsin and invited us down to see the cars. Tom didn’t come up to the FCA Event, so I was happy to have the chance to see him in his town.

The town had a population of about 400 people and the Coadys are pretty well known by the locals, but their collection is well hidden in several buildings all over town. Unfortunately, I’ve decided not to post pictures of these collection because the collector car market has gotten so competitive collectors like these do not need the publicity.

The second stop was Hillary Raab’s house in Crown Point. He drove his 365GTC/4 and fake GTO convertible to the FCA event, but his private collection consisted of much more significant cars.

He was getting ready to take a Bugatti and this Bentley to the Colorado Grand, and it was a lot of fun having Hill point out all the neat features of this pre-war car. We spent the night at Hill’s house surrounded by a house full of Vintage car memorabilia!

We talked a lot about Vintage Ferraris and how disappointed we all were with the turn out at the FCA event. This was a 50th anniversary show, and it seemed it was not any better than any other ordinary national event, maybe worse. Where were all the Vintage Ferraris? We felt we were witnessing a change in the fan base where no one drove their vintage Ferraris, and the Vintage owners were not motivated to bring their cars to the shows anymore. There were only three 2+2 Ferraris in the whole field when usually, there are at lease a dozen cars. As the field of Vintage cars dwindle, there will be less reason for people to attend. We tried to figure it out over dinner and drinks, but really didn’t have an answer.

After one more visit to Dyke Ridgely’s in Indiana, it was time to start heading back to the East Coast. We stopped a little north of Indianapolis to push through the rest of the way to the East Coast.

Sam did the lion’s share of the driving, but did get some seat time behind the wheel of the C/4. Sam has a real nice car, and has it pretty well sorted. The forty year old Ferrari performed admirably with cold air conditioning any time we needed it and power steering when it was time to cruise into a town. Out of the highway, she cruised comfortably at 80 mph without any overheating to speak of. We traveled over 2900 miles without any incident.  What a great car. What a great week. Thanks Sam for proving “Ferraris were Meant to be Driven” and not just off a truck!

If you’re going to be in Monterey for the Concorso/Quail/Pebble Beach Weekend, feel free to stop by the Third Annual Tomyang.net Cocktail Party at Quail Lodge on Thursday August 15th from 5:30pm-8pm. There will be food and a cash bar to kick off the weekend. It’s a great time to meet some of the people from website, and make plans for the rest of the weekend. See you there!

Reminder: If you have a Ferrari related project, car, or idea you’d like to explore, I’d love to talk to you. I can also help if you’re thinking of buying or selling. This website represents what I love to do, and I would be happy to help guide you through the Vintage Ferrari world so if you’d like to do something together, let me know. It all begins with an e-mail!

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