Exotic Car Blog

2010 Palo Alto Concourse D'Elegance Charity Drive to The Candy Store

Saturday June 26th, 2010 76 cars and their drivers gathered on the concourse at Stanford University in Palo Alto CA for a charity drive to The famous Candy Store in Burlingame, CA.  Cars ranging  from a 1907 Model M to the new 2010 Aston Martin Rapide provided by Los Gatos Luxury Cars started to arrive at 8am for everyone to drink coffee and enjoy each others cars before hitting the road.  Getting 76 cars out of the field and in to a single file line was not an easy task, but they managed to do it without any accidents and made it out on the road by 9:30am as planned.The line was led by 2 CHP officers, one with a Porsche C4S dressed to look like a police car with sirens and all, who kept traffic at bay.  The group drove a 71 mile loop across the Peninsula to the coast and up and around to Burlingame to The Candy Store for the charity auction and luncheon. 

For those of you who have never been to The Candy Store, it is a private museum of collectors cars with some of the best automobiles throughout history.  The Candy Store is not your typical public museum and in fact you would not even know it existed without someone telling you about it as there are no signs, the windows are covered with velvet drapes and you must ring a tiny doorbell to attempt to enter.  The Candy Store cars are seen by appointment only for private tours, private events and club members.  Photographs are not allowed!

When the group trickled in to The Candy Store they assembled in the main hall at large white clothed tables spread amongst the cars.  The afternoon event started with fine wine followed by a scrumptious buffet and then the auction began.  Many of the auctioned items sold for well over retail value with the most popular item being private track training in the Audi R8 at the track in Sonoma.  When the auction was over and the wine had run out people said their goodbyes and most confirmed their appearance at the Palo Alto Concourse D'Elegance the following day.