To the readers who could not make it to Torrance, CA for Luft 5, you really missed out. But don’t fear, because we have nearly 100 photographs to whet your appetite so you can make plans to attend the event next year. We’ve just returned from the weekend away in LA ourselves, and while it was an absolute blast to see all of these amazing Porsches, I’m unsure I’ve ever been this tired. We drove our 1976 Porsche 912E down to Los Angeles, and made the ten-hour trek back home Monday morning. All of that said, we couldn’t be happier to have attended what is possibly the best Porsche gathering of the year (we’ll have to wait and see what Rennsport Reunion, scheduled for later this year, has on tap to make a final call).
Gallery by Bradley C. Brownell
We remember when the very first Luft event was about 15 cars invited to hang out in the parking lot for a few hours. Every subsequent year has seen exponential growth. This year there was something like 400 air-cooled Porsches in attendance, and over 5000 general admission tickets were sold. The venue, Ganahl Lumber, was one of the more interesting locations to host a few thousand Porsche nuts, but it certainly worked to produce some incredible backdrops. Ganahl recently finished building this ludicrously large facility in Torrance, allegedly to the tune of seventy million dollars, and the finished product must be among the nicest lumber yards in the world.
Gallery by Manuel Carrillo, III
Posted by Bradley Brownell on Sunday, April 22, 2018
Luft is Much More than Just the Porsches
More than any of the Porsches individually [Yes, even the running 917/10 Can Am prototype shown in the video above], the real treat was seeing all of our old Porsche friends gathered together in one location. Folks from every walk of the Porsche life were hanging around, and even though it was an unseasonably warm day at the lumber yard, everyone was in pretty good spirits. We couldn’t walk more than a few feet without bumping into someone we recognized. Between a compelling conversation with Rod Emory to discussing the event’s massive growth, while hearing representatives from Porsche doing the same just a few steps away. To seeing Bruce Canepa fire up that flat-twelve only mere moments before talking to Jeff Zwart, followed shortly thereafter by a rousing debate with Nicolas Hunziker. It was amazing to see everyone, and we had a phenomenal time.
We had a friendly wager going with friend of the site, Manuel, to see who would produce the better photos by the end of the day. Bradley did his best, but it was clear by midway through the day that Manuel’s would turn out better. Luckily for you, you can check out both of our galleries from the event, totaling 84 bright and sunny aircooled Porsche photos. We hope you enjoy them.