Going to a car show for the first time, you never really know what to expect with regard to how many cars, how cool of cars, and even what kinds of cars. I was pleasantly surprised by a recent small car show I went to in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. A good number of classic cars many of which had very interesting interiors. With my new Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro SP lens on my Nikon D750 exclusively while at this car show, I decided to make the theme of my shots the cool classic car interiors, with a few detail shots here and there. Check out the sense of humor of a 1966 Mustang owner with what passes for an "airbag" in his classic car!
There was a time just a few years ago I was quite taken with the BMW M3 E46. It is a hardcore sports car that can be had on the used market for the price of a regular new car, but maybe just for now as it will only start to go up in value for low-mileage examples like the one pictured here. The original owner is selling it via bringatrailer.com so I traveled up to Santa Fe, New Mexico to photograph it for him.
If you watched Magnum PI in the 1980s, like I did, and revisited it on Netflix in recent times, through all those years I thought the only thing you needed to thwart bad guys in Hawaii was your wits, and of course a Ferrari 308 GTS! So when Bring A Trailer contacted me about photographing this supercar up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was very excited!
At long last I got to see the Porsche 918 Spyder in person! To my great surprise Porsche of Albuquerque not only featured the 918 hypercar, but also the previous Porsche hypercar, the Carrera GT! The 918 Spyder was pretty much considered the fastest production car in existence when it came out just 3 years ago, and there really is not anything much faster around a track yet.
I have only put 1,500 miles on my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk since I got it last month and have not taken it more than an hour outside of Albuquerque, but I have been offroad a lot already. Nothing crazy like Moab-like trails or anything, but I have been using it as the Jeep, especially the Trailhawk version, was intended. I really like knowing I can go anywhere, do anything with this vehicle. However, I would not do everything you see in Jeep and other offroad vehicle commercials like driving down and across streams! Or causing tumult by trying to "crawl" over big rocks. To me this is destroying Nature. I do want the Jeep to help me reach places just not possible on foot, but by staying on established fire roads and unmaintained roads.
At the 2018 New Mexico International Auto Show, there really was only one star, and there was not even a close second -- it was the 2017 Ford GT. Placed right inside the main entrance to the entire exhibit space in the Albuquerque Convention Center, there was the Ford GT in a beautiful silver-gray color. I had not seen it in person before of course, as it is a very rare car and the limited run is still being produced. In photos I had not cared for the frog-like appearance of the front fascia on this supercar. It looks much better in person, and the 3/4 view, as pictured above, revealing the extreme aero and duct work make for a truly stunning appearance. If you dare park a Ford GT on the street, it will attract massive amounts of attention!
In my life a lot of rather big things happen rather suddenly. For example, two weeks before I landed in Seoul, South Korea, I had never been abroad before, I was about to attend Claremont Graduate University's PhD program in California, and it had never crossed my mind to work overseas. Not quite as dramatic as that, but in a similar fashion, getting a SUV to better match my work and personal lifestyle here in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a professional photographer and certified drone pilot, had only fluttered across my mind a few times. I was not even sure if it would be possible as I still had payments left on my 2013 Mazda3 sedan, which I totally loved and had zero problems with in owning it for 42,000 miles.
