We have been having very extreme weather lately where we would have weeks of very sunny and hot weather followed by weeks of torrential rain, then weeks of sunny weather, and so on with nothing in-between. Therefore it is extremely important to make use of the sunny weekends and go for drives; and I did just that with my Ferrari 360 Spider manual over the weekend. This drive was particularly enjoyable as I have not driven my 360 for a month. What started off as a visit to the dealer to fix the noisy bushings (a common problem for 360s and 430s) became a five figure HKD problem when one of the parts in the soft top mechanism broke when I got to the dealer. That part was not only expensive, but also unavailable at the dealer, which meant we had to wait for 3 weeks for the dealer to order it.
I drove my 360 to Shek O, the most popular morning drive destination on Hong Kong island (some say, too popular these days). You see some interesting cars there every weekend, from super cars, to JDM’s to classic cars. I started with some road side spotting, i.e. sitting on the road side of a corner and filmed cars coming up and down (this is actually a very popular activity in Hong Kong morning drive spots although this was my first time doing it – it was not easy!) I then went to Shek O village, the popular breakfast hot spot with potentially anything from Pagani’s to Skyline GTR’s just casually parked on the side of the streets on most weekends. The final spot was Big Wave Bay parking lot, just about 2km down from Shek O village, where usually there will be some nice cars as well.
Shek O did not disappoint on this weekend morning. Right from the start a bunch of cars came up and down the corner we were sat at. The absolute highlight from that spot, if not the entire morning, was a Porsche 964 3.8RS with the wide turbo body – 1 of 55 ever made according to online articles. Porsches are always popular in Hong Kong and when we got down to Shek O village, a beautiful 930 Turbo in Slate Grey arrived. I would guess this car was only recently restored as the paint, the shiny exhaust tips, and the Fuch wheels were all flawless without a single mark that I could see. Fun fact, many people here make the mistake of calling all G-series Porsche the ‘930’ without knowing that ‘930’ is only applicable to the G-series 911 Turbo.
Another highlight in Shek O village was the Zig Green Aston Martin V12 Vantage Zagato edition. It was released in 2011 by Aston Martin and Zagato to celebrate their 50 year relationship beginning from the DB4 GT Zagato. This Vantage is 1 of 65 built worldwide, 1 of 18 in right hand drive, and the only 1 in the world to be in the same green colour as the Zagato race car that raced in the Nurgburgring. I want to say it is also the only Zagato V12 Vantage in Hong Kong as I have not seen another one before, but that is always a dangerous thing to claim in this small city as there are always surprises from what people hide in their garages. One thing for sure is this particular car is not a rare sight at all in Hong Kong as the owner is a good sport and takes it out almost every weekend (I saw it going into the business district on a Monday morning once so it’s outings are certainly not limited to only the weekends!)
Big Wave Bay parking lot had a good selection of classics, from an Alfa Romeo 75 to a Jaguar 420G, and a beautiful Porsche Carrera 2 manual (not sure if it was an original manual as the 964 Carrera 2 came in both manuals and autos, unlike the Carrera 4 which only came in manual). The Maserati Gransport MC Victory edition that used to belong to my father was also there. The MC Victory is a special and limited edition Maserati based on the very-underrated Gransport (with the Ferrari-built V8 F136 engine which shares the same block as the Ferrari 430). It was produced to celebrate the MC12 race car (the MCC) winning the title of the FIA GT championship. It is 1 of 180 cars produced. While the mechanicals are pretty much the same as the normal Gransport, the MC Victory has a lot of special interior and exterior parts, including carbon racing seats from the MC12, special blue carbon for its front lip and rear spoiler, and an Italian flag badge on its front fender. We sold the car to a mate of mine earlier this year as my father was just not driving it (10,000KM in 11 years, which is a crime!)
See our video of the morning drive here:
We hope you enjoyed this outing – stay tuned for more in the future.
Thanks to Alex of Taipan Media as always for making any of this possible (http://www.taipanmedia.com).