Enjoying a Cappuccino and an Air-Cooled Porsche on a Sunday

Air Brigade made their first visit to Cars and Cappuccino, a monthly gathering celebrating the European sports car lifestyle – modern and vintage held in Charlotte, NC. As you would expect Air Brigade was on the quest for air-cooled Porsches. There were 26 flavors on site including five 356’s, one yellow 914-6 and 20 911’s from early models to 993’s.

Hard to classify was an RSR tribute car that had Tesla power in it. The car looked like an air-cooled, but certainly missed the unmistakable sound of a Porsche flat-six. Adam, the owner of Backyard Legends in Concord, NC had just completed the build for the owner and was debuting it in a soft launch at Cars and Cappuccino. Adam took me through the build and made a comment that he finds people either love it or hate it. Early air-cooled Porsche owners can often be rabid purists to Porsche tradition so I can only imagine that there might be some blowback. I will be curious about the response as the car gains more exposure.

Several personal highlights of cars were a bright yellow pristine Porsche 914-6 owned by Lyle S, a white Targa 911SC shown by Sonderwerks and a red 1963 Porsche 356 model 90. Hopefully we’ll see all these cars on AirBrigade.com with their features and stories highlighted.

The show starts at 8:00 a.m. and runs till 10:00 a.m. When I arrived at 7:55 a.m. most cars were already present with the buzz high among the different groups of owners clustered near their cars. You had the air-cooled guys, the Super Car guys, performance car guys and assorted Vdubs, Alfas, Lotus and a McLaren or two mixed in.

If you are a member of Cars and Cappuccino you get a parking spot on the prime lot. Non-members park in the garage nearby and offered a nice selection of assorted European sports cars. By nine, cars and owners were starting to leave while another new car or two trickled in. A slantnose 911 with Martini stripes passed me as I pulled out so I suspect staying till the close at 10:00 a.m. will yield a surprise or two.

The schedule for future events or membership information can be found at carsandcappuccino.com

View the photo gallery tab for over 40 photos of the event.