Luftgekuhlt 6 raises the bar for Porschephilia

If you were lucky – and you have to be really lucky to even get into Luftgekuhlt anymore since it’s easily the hottest ticket in auto enthusiasm – if you’re lucky you got the 8:00 a.m. ticket, which theoretically allowed you entry into Luftgekuhlt 6 before the masses hit the gates at 10:00. I called everyone I knew and finally got the right guy, and an 8:00 ticket. I was there at 7:30, not sure exactly what this whole show would be like.

I’d been to Luftgekuhlts before and found each one fascinating, in its under-the-radar, secret-password way. You not only had to know what the event was and when and where it was happening, but you had to have both an understanding of why old Porsches were cool as well as a burning desire to wallow in them, all of them, from the famous Le Mans winners to the totally unknown beaters that populate these shows. You might not think there were enough cognoscenti that specific to fill up a space this big, but it turns out there are thousands of them, way more than could possibly fit inside. It has become the ultimate insider’s ticket.

Past years had seen Luftsgekuhlt at: a furniture manufacturing facility in industrial South L.A., a former warehouse district-turned artist’s colony at the L.A. port in San Pedro, and last year’s show at Ganahl Lumber in Torrance. European shows were likewise eclectic, one in London and another in Munich. But this year’s Luftgekuhlt 6 would be held on the backlot of Universal Studios, a place normally open only to movie stars and set decorators, unless you were on a tram getting the $109-to-$349 tour, where you’d see the guy dressed like Norman Bates chase the tram away from the Bates Motel, or cruise through the unused “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” set, all wintry all year long but missing its Whos.























How would they do it, organizers Patrick Long and entrepreneur designer Howie Idelson? How would they utilize empty sets known categorically by their marketing names as “Western Street,” “New York Street,” “Spartacus Square” and “Psycho House?” At a little after eight o’clock Saturday morning we would all find out. That was when the first busload of photographers was released from the first tram and poured out like starving hamsters. I was in the second bus and did the same, running through the scenes like an escapee from a lunatic asylum, carrying a camera, dashing from air-cooled 911 to air-cooled 911 to shoot them before they were all blocked off from view by the coming waves of Porschephiles.

After about a minute it became clear just how far the show extended into the backlot: not just the original sets replicating New York and Europe, but all the way up the hill to the Western Set where seemingly every western movie ever was shot, starting in the silent era just after Carl Laemmle founded Universal Studios as a colony for filmmakers, and up to “Three Amigos” in 1986. Past the giant 50-foot-tall murals of Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, all famously filmed here, now living in eternity as gigantor works of art and looming over a scattered field of 370 air-cooled Porsches. They were everywhere: scenes you recognized from movies and Porsches you recognized just because you loved Porsches.

OMG this was cool.
























Everywhere you turned there was something fascinating. Sure there was Porsche history – look, there’s Hurley Haywood talking to Tom Gloy and Bruce Canepa; there’s Derek Bell and Justin Bell, both Le Mans winners; Jerry Seinfeld; Tommy Kendall, John Oates who had a Rod Emory Outlaw Porsche, Chad McQueen whose dad let him sit in his lap and steer a 917 that summer at La Sarthe.  

And the cars, OMG (again) the cars: there were 917s around every corner, 911s both beater and world beater, 356s, race cars, street cars, rally cars, one 911 set up with tank tracks in back and skis in front. A Carrera 6, a 908, a 962 just sitting on the Western Street. One 911 perched in front of the steps where Dirty Harry had famously queried, “You gotta ask yourself, do I feel lucky?” In front of the Courthouse where they filmed “Inherit The Wind,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Back To The Future” sat a somewhat normal-looking blue 911. Across the square at the gas station built for “Back to the Future” was a blue 356, awaiting a fillup that would never come because this was the movies and nothing is real. In “Mexican Plaza” were a number of 911s made for the dirt: A 1979 rally car, a Kelly Moss off-road 911, and several more Porsches jacked up for dirt duty. More Porsches parked in The Court of Miracles, a set that looked like a small European village and at one time hosted Dracula, Frankenstein, and even “My Little Chickadee.” Across the lake from which once slithered “The Creature From The Black Lagoon” you could see Stage 28, where “Phantom of the Opera” and portions of “The Sting” were famously filmed; Stage 27 where they shot parts of “Jurassic Park;” and everywhere you looked were Porsches that would make you stop and gawk if they’d been anywhere else parked on the street.

“Photographic composition and backdrops have always been the cornerstone of Luftgekuhlt, and this venue promises to present the best yet,” read a statement by organiers Long and Idelson.

There’s no question they succeeded. The only thing remaining to see is how they could possibly top this in Luftgekuhlt 7. And for that we, and they, have another year to figure it out.

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