I left Monterey on Monday after Pebble Beach Sunday to head north to Sonoma. It was kind of creepy how the GPS data was almost as accurate as the real life image of the Golden Gate Bridge. I guess being in the Bay Area, the geeks at Apple would play with the GPS Data locally first, or is it that I haven’t been out of my house in a while?

I headed to Sonoma to visit Jim Simpson at ODD Parts and the workshop that Jim, Matt and Steve fix, repair, and create solutions to all things automotive. Just as their name suggests, they work on everything that comes into their shop and have either found solutions, or will find one because no one else has.

I spent an afternoon in wine country not looking at vineyards and wine, but old car parts and machinery. I shot a video of my visit, so I’ll look for it on my YouTube Channel soon.

The next morning I headed back towards Silicone Valley to eventually catch my evening flight home to NY, but there was still time to do a few more things!

Oracle’s cafeteria which is open to the public, served some good food, and is probably the cheapest lunch you will find in Silicone Valley since it’s subsidized by the computer giant, but I wasn’t there to save money on lunch, but to catch up with my friend Luke!

We couldn’t help but notice the huge America’s Cup winning Sailboat planted right in the middle of the Oracle Lagoon.

With a little time to spare after lunch, Luke took me for a ride in his daily driver, a decommissioned police interceptor complete with lights, sirens, and spot lights. I don’t know how effective this rig is at clearing traffic on the 101, because if I were to see this in my rear view, I would slow down 5mph BELOW the speed limit!

Luke brought me over to PWK Imports in Belmont to see his newly aquired Citroen DS from Bring a Trailer and meet Peter Koine. Luke brought a baguette to accessorize the car and to hear what Peter found on his car after an expert’s inspection. Peter is one of the last Citroen experts in the Bay Area, and although you don’t see a lot of these running around, there is a dedicated following.

In pictures the car looked nice on BAT, and even my camera shows a nice clean car, but it was a slightly different story for Peter.

Peter showed Luke where there were some oil leaks that would need to addressed, and how some mistakes were made by the previous shop. Luke gave Peter the green light to go ahead and repair as necessary as he knew how lucky he was to have Peter working on his Citroen!

One nice feature on the DS was the removable fenders to help with servicing the engine and mechanicals.

The removable fender might have been helpful, but would it have been necessary if the French hadn’t tucked so many mechanical pieces into hard to reach places? Even the brakes were inboard of the front wheel drive system. I guess that is why Peter is the Citroen Expert, and I’m going to stick with what I know!

We stopped by San Fransisco Sports Cars, but after a week of looking at cars, I wasn’t dying to look at a bunch of newer Porsches and Ferraris!

The next stop was Taormina Imports.

Although I will probably never work on a Bugatti Veyron, it was interesting to see one on a lift.

One more stop was made a Issimi, another sportscar shop in the Bay Area servicing, storing, and selling dreams to the tech sector!

Thanks Luke for taking time out of work to driving me around in your Police Interceptor. I’m glad you didn’t make me ride in the back cuffed to the floor!

I caught the Red-Eye home Tuesday night afer Monterey. It was a busy week, and even though I said I would sleep when I got home, I had to many things waiting for me when I got home, and so it never stops!