Mega Gallery: Corvette Forum Descends Upon California Festival of Speed

By Manuel Carrillo III - April 20, 2015

Corvette Forum descended upon California Festival of Speed on April 12, and good times were had by many. With the warm Sun glistening off your ‘Vettes accompanied by the background audio of high-horsepower exotics parading around Auto Club Speedway, it was about as good as a Sunday in Southern California gets.

Before we get to the gallery, though, let’s talk about some of the cooler things that went down.

Yes, this happened.

And this happened, too.

But this one is my favorite. I know nothing about the person who owns this Kia Rio; perhaps their other car is a Porsche 918 Spyder … maybe they’re one of the many Corvette Forum members who plan on buying a ‘Vette in a few years and just want to be a part of the community in the meantime. Whoever this person is, at the end of the day, they are the coolest Kia Rio driver ever.

Here’s what I drove to the California Festival of Speed. It’s a Morgan 3 Wheeler. That’s an S&S 1983-cc V twin hanging off the front end. That motor is linked to a slick Mazda five-speed manual, which channels the V twin’s 82 horsepower to the single rear wheel and tire in the back. The thing weighs about 1,225 pounds, so it has a weight-to-power ratio of 14.9 lbs./hp — on par with the Volkswagen Jetta GLI and the Mazda MX-5 Miata.

So it’s not the fastest car, and with three contact patches keeping the law and order instead of four, it’s not the grippiest through the corners, either. To be honest, there’s not much this machine does well, and yet, it’s one of the best cars I’ve ever driven.

It’s also very attention-grabbing. The Morgan 3 Wheeler got so many cheers and thumbs up as I was driving around town, you’d think I was dropping stacks of $100 bills onto the boulevard. People at the California Festival of Speed loved it, too. Crowds were gathering for me to rev it, kids wanted to climb it like a jungle gym, and grown men morphed into children just standing near it. It’s an incredible machine, and for about $50,000, it may be the least expensive way to feel like you’re some rock star driving a $2-million hypercar.