Carhuna Coffee Morning - 17/02/24
Words and Images by Mitcham Media
For anyone who’s not been near the internet (or any car events) over the last year or so, Carhuna is an online sales platform dedicated to make the experience as good and enjoyable as possible for all involved. With big names like DK Engineering, Girado and Co. and many more all supporting and using the platform it’s no surprise it’s grown so quickly. If you’re in the market for anything automotive from memorabilia to cars it’s the go to place.
With the launch last year taking social media by storm featuring more gems than a 50 Cents jewellery collection, Veyrons, McLarent F1’s, Koenigseggs, an F50 and so much more was always going to cause a stir. The good news for all of us is Carhuna have hosted more Cars and Coffee events since their launch.
The dreary February weather certainly wasn’t going to put us off making the trip to Amersham, and as we pulled up first thing it was clear no one else was missing it either. Every parking space was full through out the industrial estate.
Before heading through the gate to the main event, a quick wander round the car park revealed some gems creeping. A scattering of M, AMG and RS cars are always good to see, but it was the BMW E21 323i which was a real gem parked up next too a near sleeper looking Porsche 997 GT3 which from afar blended in.
Even with the misty rain, the drab grey wet weather did give a glossy sheen to everything and made every colour pop that bit extra.
Porsches were rife across the venue, and to get all nerdy, there was everything from 930’s to 996 to 992, water cooled and aircooled, Caymans, 911s and Cayennes, turbo’s and Targa’s, even a Singer DLS.
The Singer DLS really stands out against everything else. At a distance it looks like a model, every panel gap and detail looks artificially perfect. The green over tan example displayed the level of detail Singer go to, with all the exposed carbon work featuring a green weave carbon which blended in against the body till you got up close to the bumpers, engine bay cover and most the coolest feature, the rear quarter window replacement air intakes forcing oxygen down the gullet of the 4 litre, aircooled flat 6 which is kicking out 500 BHP.
A four wheeled conflicting opinion arrived part way through the morning, the 992 GT3 RS. Recently voted Evo’s car of the year for 2023, the GT3 RS is spoken about like a god amongst mere mortals across the entire automotive world, but controversially it’s far too much. While it may be an astonishingly good car on a track, the design is very busy with so many fiddly aero bits on every panel, this was highlighted by sitting the 992 GT3 RS beside the 991 GT2 RS which looked far more clean and sleek while still maintaining the menacing feeling. That wasn’t set out to sound like a negative opinion, the GT3 RS is an epic car but it’s too much race car for the road (before we even get started on the ridiculousness of getting on the list to buy one).
Possibly the most rare and outrageous attendee was the wide hipped Koenig E24 which should really have arrived with Blue Monday blaring. 1 of only 2 made, the E24 stood out against everything else at the coffee morning, especially with how little people know about Koenig. Koenig Specials were a German tuning company set up in 1974 by Willi Koenig and best known for their bold and often outrageous modifications both visually and boosting the performance too.
It wasn’t just BMW’s Koenig added their touch to, over the 20 or so years they were open cars included the Porsche 935, Ferrari Testarossa, and Lamborghini Countach as well as various models of Mercedes.
Inside Carhuna was less of a shed full of cars and more a stable of unicorns. The Lamborghini Diablo GTR in lurid yellow drew us in very quickly, refinement wasn’t a big thing back when it was new with the box section chassis and enormous exhausts sticking out the back end, but that’s part of what made this era of racing so cool.
Tucked up next to the Diablo, sitting some how even lower and having half the foot print was a stunning 1974 Alfa Romeo GT Junior. The GT Junior is very much dream car, there’s something quintessentially cool about the styling, and this example features a smorgasbord of Alfaholics upgrades turning it right up to 11.
Pride of place at the back of the Carhuna unit, tucked away behind some tenser barriers was a fruity Bugatti Chiron Sport finished in Damson over Tangerine.
The Chiron is a car seldom seen in the flesh and it’s difficult to comprehend the shear size of them, it’s a bullish, wide, low and long beast which looks so dense. The front end has a “don’t f*ck with me” look like it’s ready to use every single one of the near 1500 horsepower to do unspeakable things. Compared to it’s predecessor, the Veyron, it’s got so much more agresion.
Quality and craftsmanship are areas which Bugatti are proud of and prioritise and with the Chiron it really stands out with the attention to detail.
The Chiron was sat not too far away from a Porsche 918 (in Pure White with a Weissach pack for the annoraks reading this) which gave a good opportunity to compare the brute against the a member of ‘the holy trinity’. Despite knowing the 918 would likely be so much better for hitting lap times, the Chiron gives off ultimate daily driver. The Chiron had a look and feel like you could be sending fast laps of Donington in the morning then go straight into chomping through miles driving down to the south of France and on to Italy in absolute comfort. Just the noise of all four turbos spooling and the roar of the W16 would never get old either.
It wouldn’t be an event involving DK Engineering without a selection of prancing horses being on display. The first car you’re greeted with as you walk through the roller shutter door, sat centre stage is a stunning Ferrari 275 GTB. Hind sight being a wonderful thing, it would have been good to try and learn a bit more about the example on display as there are so many variants of the 275 GTB with long/short nose, alloy body, different number of louvres, different numbers of camshafts and all sorts.
Famous for their speciality with the F40, you won’t be shocked to hear one was featured at the back of the warehouse.
It’s bizzare how things have progressed, when compared to modern day cars the F40 could be seen as fairly meek with less than 500 horsepower (compared to a Ferrari 812 with nearly 800 BHP) and a 0-60 of around 4.7 seconds which would be beaten by a Golf R, but it’s the analogue nature of the F40 which makes it such a formidable drive. There’s absolutely zero aid to help with keeping the power on the tarmac and the car still pointing forwards.
Refinement wasn’t the strong point of the F40 but considering it was 13 months to go from a lunch break sketch on a wine stained napkin, to a production ready car being shipped to customers the results are impressive.
Other Ferraris on display included a Portofino ticking the box of modern, but the greater draw was the ‘73 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Spider. The Spider was a conversion completed by CP Autokraft way back in 1984 who were thought of as being the best and most accurate at converting coupes to spiders having completed a total of 8 vehicles.
The 365 Daytona condition is difficult to describe, immaculate and phenomenal don’t quite do it justice, the car looked entirely un-used. While the Grigio Ferro (Grey) body colour is quite reserved for a Ferrari, the Daytona would make a fantastic classic GT which could get you to the middle of nowhere in comfort, but then be ready to make noise and slide it’s way through twisty roads making you smile the whole way.
The 918 mentioned briefly before was a questionable colour choice in Pure White, although it does make a nice change from seeing them in the silver, but for a ten year old car it still looks bang up to date. Walking round the 918 did spark the debate of which of the Holy Trinity has aged the best, our conclusion was the P1 has if anything improved with age, closely followed by the 918 with the LaFerrari bringing up the rear. The shared opinion was the P1 is leaps and bounds better looking than the Senna which followed, and going by the current market prices of the P1 compared to the Senna it looks like buyers share a similar preference to the P1 (to the tune of hundreds of thousands difference in price).
The morning was exceptional, with the original plan to be to nip in for a quick hour to have a coffee and chat it escalated very quickly to a few hours and running out of time.
Thank you to Carhuna for organising the morning and providing amazing coffee. A huge thank you also to everyone who provided cars, DK Engineering, The Octane Collection, Cottingham Blue Chip and many many more.
We’re looking forward to the next one. Check out more images from the morning below.
