Automotive Photographic
Galleries of 2023

2023 opened on Mare Island, where Luftgekühlt 9 turned brick, cranes, and dry docks into a living gallery. The place already meant something to me—my grandfather worked this shipyard during World War II—and the weekend carried that weight: Saturday’s air-cooled focus flowed into Sunday’s Air | Water, connecting eras in one cinematic sweep. My photos trace that arc, from a historically pivotal 1967 911 T to rows of whale tails and ducktails, a chorus of rear spoilers rewriting the 911’s posture. “Luftovers” gathered everything too good for the cutting-room floor: long-hoods along Building 112, a ribbon of water-cooled 911s in Building 116, a Porsche 910 with real pedigree, and a fleeting cameo of Jeff Zwart rolling past on a bicycle.

From there, the calendar crossed into workshops and lawns. At Gunther Werks’ Kombustion Open House, the fully exposed carbon-fiber “exoskeleton” read like a blueprint made three-dimensional, while the Turbo development mule’s packaging turned engineering into sculpture. The Benedict Castle Concours shifted the mood to Riverside—Spanish-Moorish stonework, terraces, and a purpose-driven show that pairs philanthropy with SoCal car culture.

Monterey Car Week packed the lens. Werks Reunion compressed Porsche’s universe into fairways: GT rows nose-to-nose, a jade-green 356 Cabriolet showing 976,500 miles like a love letter, a black 356 Speedster that still hushes a crowd, and a silver 550-style Spyder tracing the brand’s earliest racing line. The Gunther Werks Dinner Club brought me back indoors for close-up craft—bare weave, tight junctions, purposeful cabins.

The year crescendoed at Rennsport Reunion 7, where Laguna Seca became a family album at speed. Beyond the race cars: a Manthey-kitted 992 GT3, the all-electric Vision 357 Speedster, the #46 356—Porsche’s first Le Mans class winner—the Mission X concept with its hypercar intent, an Emory turbo 356 with outlaw bite, and Steve McQueen’s black 356 Speedster anchoring the lore. Looking back, 2023 felt like one continuous conversation—heritage, experimentation, and community—told in metal, light, and the roads between them.