Sweater Weather - West Coast Edit
APRIL 12, 2021
As an East Coast transplant to the Left Coast/Best Coast, I can attest that there is nothing I love more than my new version of late winter and early spring. Gone are the days in Boston where I’d throw on two sweaters and a Canada Goose parka just to trudge a couple blocks into work. Seeing your breath in the air every time you step outside for months at a time, and knowing that the local public schools are literally closing because it is too cold out? (Californians, believe it or not this is actually a thing) Hard pass hombre.
These days, I find myself patiently looking forward to those final weeks of late March and early April when winter’s grasp on the day is just strong enough to put a brisk chill in the air until right around 10AM. All of my favorite sweaters and sweatshirts have become a little more worn in since moving West in early 2018 because that’s all you really need on mornings like the one we had last Sunday. An earlier riser by nature, I took advantage of the later start hours of Heritage Gruppe’s monthly meet (9-12 for those of you who haven’t made it yet!) to blast up the PCH and warm up the oil in the engine and blood in the veins for a few miles before making my way over to Sun Valley. Windows down, an instrument gauge slightly foggy from the ocean air swirling in the cabin, and finger tips ever so slightly numb from driving a little too quickly are all the signs of starting a day right.
This month’s Driver’s Meeting saw a slew of familiar faces and vehicles show up but also plenty of new ones. Bimmer nation is always out in full force with some extremely nice examples of 80’s and 90’s German goodness. My favorite by far was a perfectly stanced E46 M3 in what I can only guess was Topaz or Mystic Blue. Sean Lee of @puristgroup never fails to disappoint, rolling in with an unbelievably clean E30 M3. I am a huge fan of tastefully modified vehicles, but sometimes a simple original is best – OEM spec with some damn tasteful BBS wheels and just the right amount of wheel gap. Check please!
One of my favorite parts of the HG meets is some of the more esoteric stuff that rolls in. Case in point - Chris’s (@broncoverde) ’95 Ford Bronco in full-on government-issued Forestry Service green (what?!). I encourage all of you to chat with Chris at the next meet and hear the story of how he found this truck. I won’t share and spoil too many details but a small island off the coast of Alaska may or may not be involved. Needless to say, I will be spending the foreseeable future browsing government auction sites looking for a gently used workhorse chariot of my own.
For someone’s whose day job is mostly spent behind a computer screen with trillions of digital light particles rocketing into my naked eyeballs, hour after hour, it is thoroughly enjoyable to chat face to face with those who roll through the car meets that dot Southern California's landscape every weekend. Sunday was no different, and I had the pleasure of talking with some phenomenal people at Heritage. Most nostalgic for me was meeting a father and son who were doing some 'market research' for their first project car together - years ago they had a triple black 996 911 'vert in the family, and I admittedly was pushing hard for something German and rear-engined for them to work on together. As always, the team at @illest was there with a great set up and sick new gear, and the Berlin foodtruck kept attendees full of grilled cheese and coffee throughout the morning.
So as spring slowly turns to summer here in LA, don’t miss the opportunity to cruise around in the early morning air with the windows down (or the top off, in the case of @levv__1's monstrous C7 Corvette), your favorite sweatshirt on and tunes cranked. Before you know it it'll be windows up and the AC fully cranked, stuck in traffic on the 405 and 101. Until next time crew! - Brendan (@b.g.mckay)
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