Until the Ford GT Owner's Rally happens in a couple months (August 2-5, go to The Ford GT Forum to sign up!), this was easily the single largest gathering of Ford GTs on the West Coast. Twenty-five GTs showed up at Duke's restaurant in Malibu early Saturday morning for a fun run through the Santa Monica Mountains.
First stop was the legendary Rock Store on Mulholland Highway. It's primarily a biker hangout, and on weekend mornings it gets pretty crowded. But we set out from Dukes at 9:30 a.m. and got to the Rock Store around 10:30, after a run up Las Flores and Stunt Road, followed by a quick photo op. The motorcycles were still rolling into the Rock Store's parking lot, so we lined up the GT's across the street and took a stroll through the chrome and leather. Many a biker similarly took a walk across the street to peruse the two-dozen GTs in nearly every color offered (Quick Silver - as opposed to Tungsten - is the rarest GT color, and we didn't have any of that shade in our rally).
Next stop was a photo shoot in the high Santa Monica Mountains before turning off on Little Sycamore Canyon and hooking up with Yerba Buena Road. Those routes are honestly too rough and slow to excersice the GT, with tight turns and rumbling, broken pavement. But if you want to get a sense of what the Southern California mountains used to be like (before the massive population influx of the past 150 years) this route offers a glimpse.
We finally made it back to PCH and took a right toward Ventura County. The rally wound as far north as Point Magu Naval Air Station and Missle Park before heading south to Point Dume for a much-anticipated, catered lunch at one of the rally participant's house. The food was superb, and our Midnight Blue GT never stalled once, so it seems the problem is gone (at least for now...). The odometer flipped over 9,000 miles during the rally, which must put it among the higher mileage GTs out there (though we know of at least one with more than 44,000 clicks on the odo - and that one is still going strong!).
Karl Brauer, Editor in Chief, Edmunds.com @ 9,077 miles
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