Van Horssen Group

San Diego, vintage car races and scenic drives in supercars…what could be better?

Set against the stunning backdrop of San Diego Bay, the tenth annual Coronado Speed Festival will feature the world’s most unique and pedigreed machines at one of the most distinctive stages, Naval Air Station North Island.  This is one of few events where you can get up close and personal to very significant vintage race cars and meet the charismatic drivers that race them.

To make the event even more fun, we’re organizing a driving tour from Phoenix to San Diego by way of backroads and a return on Monday via a different route.  On Saturday morning, before the races we’ll also take a 1/2 day drive on some of the great roads near San Diego.

Included in this special package:

• Cars from the Van Horssen Group Private Collection
• VIP tickets to the Coronado Speed Festival
• Luxury accommodations on Coronado Island
• Private guided tour of the USS Ronald Reagan
• Extra mileage allotments to participate in drives
• Tour guide, support truck, tour booklet, maps

With access to an array of great cars, we want to help members enjoy the myriad of events put on by local or national car clubs.  Participating in these club events is an excellent way to enjoy the cars and meet other enthusiasts.  You should consider cars from the Van Horssen Group as your own and use them as you like.  We’ll be offering varying incentives and adjustments to make participation even easier.

The major and most active car clubs are: Porsche Club, Ferrari Club, Lamborghini Club and Scottsdale Exotic Car Club.  Please let us know if there are any other clubs or events that you would like to be a part of.  Some upcoming fun events being organized by car clubs are:

• Cars & Coffee by Scottsdale Exotic Car Club - 8/25 at 9am in North Scottsdale.  This is a large but informal car show where a bunch of owners of exotics get together and talk cars over coffee.  Members are welcome to take cars free of charge if they are available.
• Route 66 Days Flagstaff Tour by Porsche Club - 9/7-9/9 in Northern Arizona.  Beat the heat and head for higher ground in September.  Join fellow PCA members for a weekend in the pines at their 2nd Annual Car Show & Autocross in Flagstaff.
• The Ventura Show by Porsche Club - 9/7-9/9 in Ventura, CA.  Hundreds of Porsches, all models and years.  Experience Seven Premier Events combined into one of the largest Porsche-only gatherings in the World.
• San Diego Meet by Lamborghini Club - 10/19-10/21 in San Diego.  Join other Lamborghini’s in San Diego for a weekend of events.

Get out of town and into a fun car, then drive it like you stole it up to Jerome!  This route is full of incredible scenery and twisty mountain turns.  After an exciting drive, we’ll lunch in one of Arizona’s funkiest towns before heading back.

The Day Drive to Jerome will be on Saturday, September 8th.  Here are the details for participation:

• Reserve the car of your choice for September 8th or the entire weekend with no weekend reservation fee
• No use cycle fee if you pick up and drop off at Van Horssen Group headquarters
• No supplemental driver fee if your friends/family would like to drive
• A light breakfast and lunch will be provided by Van Horssen Group
• Participants will be credited extra miles
• Members may share cars and the costs for the day will be split 

For this Day Drive, we’ll meet at Van Horssen Group headquarters at 9:00am for a 9:30am departure.  It will take us about three hours to get to the restaurant where we will have lunch.  We should be back by about 4:00pm

In 2005 I decided to buy my first Ferrari. I’d been looking at different models for years and fell in love with the 550 Maranello, the model I saw in the movie “Bad Boys II.” I finally mentally committed to buying the car and found a Lamborghini dealer in Scottsdale, Arizona that carried high end stuff around Halloween. By November the dealer called me and had found the car. He was ready and puckered up and pulled the trigger on it. It cost me $140,000 for a shiny slightly used (16,700 miles) 2000 Titanium Maranello. Boy was I excited! (The over inflated price I paid at XXXX dealership is for another blog…) So I signed my papers and had this thing at a hundred grand below the new sticker price.

My naive thought was that the car had already taken the majority of its depreciation hit so I’d be in good shape. Wrong….

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The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster is now available! 

Perhaps even better looking than the DB9 Volante, more fun to drive and with better functionality, the Vantage Roadster is a new favorite.  The six-speed Graziano manual (paddle shifters) performs quite well and is fun to compare to the Lambo’s e-gear and Ferrari’s F1.  The Tungsten silver exterior and Cream leather interior compliment each other very nicely, especially with the top down.

An array of British, German, Italian, and American metal were lined up, shining and idling in front of Van Horssen Group, ready for their drivers. The Aston Martin DB9 Volante, BMW M Roadster, Porsche 997 Turbo, Lamborghini Gallardo and Corvette Z06 couldn’t have been more different from each other, yet all seemed like the perfect car for a leisurely drive to Payson, Arizona.

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To be honest, I think that this is best read (or written for that matter) after a couple glasses of wine (or whatever else helps to numb you).

So let me set the premise to this story for all of those that haven’t already had a chance to laugh at my ignorance.

It was about a year ago, which puts me at 23, and I am in Las Vegas to photograph the brand new Koenigeggagesseeggageeggg@$#%Ggg CCX, the only one in the US to be exact (but that’s just a technicality) for CI6 Autostyle Magazine. In negotiations with the photoshoot coordinator I had set up to shoot it at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Everything was going well until she uttered the words, ”so would you like to drive it?” Read more »

The Copperstate 1000 is an annual vintage car rally going on its 17th year.  This year Van Horssen Group was a proud sponsor of this event which helps raise funds for the Phoenix Art Museum and gives participants a chance to stretch the legs of some very rare and exciting vintage automobiles.

Although very fond of vintage cars, to stay true to our offering of the world’s best modern cars, Van Horssen Group founder Ron Van Horssen and wife Linda drove the 1000 mile journey in what will surely be a classic one day, a Ferrari 575M GTC Maranello.  While other participants may have felt a little uncomfortable on long stretches of rough road or annoyed at the wind and water seeping through 60 year old seams, the Maranello was quiet, comfortable and fast.

Some of the more notable entries of this year included a 1924 Bentley 3/8 litre, a 1925 Bugatti Type 35A and Ed Herrmann’s 1953 Hudson Hornet.  The route is different each year but this year the first stop was in the Grand Canyon.  The second day took them to St. George, Utah.  They headed back to the red rocks of Sedona for the last night before returning to Scottsdale.

Van Horssen Group is pleased to be a part of the Copperstate and will be sponsoring similar events which will give members unique access to some exciting automotive events including the Grand Prix Arizona, November 30th - December 2nd. 

The Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Monument Valley AND a day on one of America’s newest and best tracks - these are some of the many highlights of Van Horssen Group’s Arizona & Utah Tour.

The Arizona & Utah Tour
If you’ve ever visited or plan to visit any of the places above, without a doubt you will enjoy it more driving one of the world’s best cars from Van Horssen Group’s Private Collection.  The tour will begin in Phoenix on Thursday, July 19th as we head north, taking scenic roads and passing the Grand Canyon, to Kanab, Utah.  From Kanab we’ll be just a short distance from two other spectacular sights: Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park.  By the end of our day we’ll reach the Sundance Resort, tucked up in the mountains behind Salt Lake City.  Saturday and Sunday will feature scenic loop drives through the surrounding mountains as well as many other activities offered by the resort and near Salt Lake City.  On Tuesday, July 24th following the trackday, we’ll buckle up again and head through Canyonlands and Monument Valley on our way back to Phoenix.

Miller Motorsports Park Trackday
The highly acclaimed track at Miller Motorsports Park will be ours for a full day of exciting driving on Monday, July 23rd.  Participants will have the opportunity to run various supercars from the Van Horssen Group fleet and work with instructors to develop new skills and techniques.  The track has been deemed one of the best in the country offering a smooth, fast surface with many different types of turns, as well as top notch facilities around it. 

Participants are welcome to join one, several or all portions of this trip, be it just the drive to Salt Lake City, the day drives around Salt Lake City and the Miller Motorsports Trackday, or the return journey to Phoenix. 

Fit for the French Riviera, Van Horssen Group’s new Bentley Continental GTC embodies elegance and luxury.  Wrapped in a sumptuous Silverlake Blue with Saffron interior, the car compels passersby to stare and admire the smooth lines, exquisite color and luxurious finish.

Looks aside, the car is exceptionally quick, very solid and smooth.  With a 6.0 liter twin turbo W12 Bentley engine mustering 550 horsepower, the car gets to 60mph in 4.9 seconds and tops out at a "bad hair day" 195mph.  Inside the light leather interior set off by the maple trim compliment the exterior color perfectly.  The seats have more adjustments than most people know how to use and the backseats are usable for anyone not in the NBA or NFL.  Although the lucky occupants of this car were meant to soak up the sun and feel the wind in their hair, when the top is up the car maintains its sophisticated and stylish look while enveloping passengers in a quiet protected cabin.

The other new addition to the Private Collection is beautiful in a bad sort of way.  As sexy as an angry supermodel, the Pearl Yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder is not for grandmothers going to tea parties.  The car takes the same foundation as the rock solid, super quick Gallardo coupe and chops the top off, letting two road warriors hear the roar of the snarling V10 and experience the exhilarating freedom of open air motoring.