Well, I recently turned 8,000 miles on my Ford and thought it would be nice to treat her to another oil change (she's had several, ever since the first one around 500 miles, on my pampered beast).

I met Ladis Sanchez at the LA Auto Show a few months back, he works at Galpin as a sales consultant and he recently called and invited me to drop by. Ladis is a big car enthusiast and a good all around guy. Ladis hooked me up with Jonny Valestin, who painlessly arranged a service appointment, ordered the parts, and followed up to let me know when they arrived. We coordinated it, so I could just wait for the work to complete. As they say, time flies when you are having fun...

I'd been sort of curious (okay, somewhat lustful after, the limited edition Dan Gurney Saleen Mustang, particularly in blue)



Here is a nice Roush 427R:



Another Roush, with the desirable track pack.



The Galpin showroom:



In case one wants to mod their interior:



When you drop a 350 crate motor into a modern mustang body, it sounds so good, even if just at idle:



Ladis took me for a tour of the Private Collection, and I picked up a nice Galpin calendar that gave detailed descriptions of the special cars:





The Scynthe. This car features a twin Magnuson supercharged engine that runs on methanol and produces 1,005 hp. The platform is a 2008 Ford Mustang GT convertible, all body panels removed and obviously re-sculpted.





The ROTAR (ROTh Air CaR). This is an actual hovercraft powered by two 650cc Triumph motorcycle engines. Reportedly able to hover several inches off the ground and rumor has it that it crashed into a crowd of bystanders once.



The Orbitron. Galpin found this car rotting away in Mexico, literally being used as a makeshift trash dumpster, but intact with all original parts. So, they did a full restoration, including re-chroming 2,600 original parts.







Pure beauty...



And this is the final display area from MTV's "Pimp my Ride"



Ladis cruised me around in the Ford Flex, I was impressed by the Sync system, never really played with it before.



A Cage movie car...Red Mist.



Sex on wheels?



Loved the DBS:



This pearly white was a object of art:





Haven't seen one of these Jaguars in a while, still looking good:



I always think it's hard to go wrong with black...(except for the cleaning, but then, Mike of ProMobile, always does a fantastic job).



And, I test drove the Gurney Mustang and found it to be a wonderful and unique car. But not the daily driver that my Dinan Stage II Cooper S is.

So, I was in and out in just over a couple hours. Smooth as clockwork. I even ate breakfast at the dealership cafe when I arrived. Overall, a nice dealership experience, and I enjoyed the tour and the superb treatment.

In this dire economy, not every day is pleasant, but this morning definitely was a fun and memorable one.

 

Great photos, those Ed Roth cars are sweet!

 

My childhood friend buillds/used to build (dunno..havent talked to him for awhile) Galpin's SEMA trucks. They gave him 2 F-150's each for $1 because his work was so good and he promoted Galpin for so many years....