opportunity at the American Muscle Car Museum (AMCM) maintenance building. Others that came in early visited a few of the local attractions, such as the Kennedy Space Center just a few miles up US 1 in Merritt Island.
Zonefest – The Zone Festival It took two years to outlast the pandemic challenges. After waiting it out, the ten Florida Regions and the Puerto Rico Region of Porsche Club of America came together to celebrate ZONEFEST! Zonefest is a gathering of the Regions for each PCA Zone. Our Zone 12 typically holds an annual event; however, with health and safety concerns, the 2020 and 2021 gatherings were cancelled. With improving conditions, Zonefest 2022 was held over Memorial Day weekend in Melbourne, Florida. Gold Coast Region was represented by roughly twenty members of the total, which approached 200 attendees. Many folks arrived early Friday afternoon— primarily the concours participants—to take advantage of the car washing
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Die Porsche Kassette
| Jul 2022
The official kickoff party for Zonefest ’22 was a welcome dinner hosted by Porsche Melbourne. Attendees were treated to a fiesta-style taco bar and a live band. Zone 12 Region participants mingled and reconnected over cocktails, including the requisite margaritas! Porsche Melbourne is a Premier Porsche dealership and they had quite a few previously owned vehicles on display in the dealership. Porsche Melbourne’s new car sales volume is roughly fifty Porsches sold every month. With the exceptional demand and diminished supply, these new vehicles are delivered to their customers almost immediately after arrival at the dealership. Hence, the showroom was festooned with newer and previously owned PCars, the latter in excellent condition. Unfortunately, during the dinner the clouds opened, and it poured buckets (rain, no hail) on all the cars recently washed. This, of course, was all to the horror of the concours participants. The weather cleared for Saturday morning to bright sunshine and warmth. Concours participants were up bright and early to
prepare their cars again, post-storm. It was a short drive from the host hotel, the Melbourne Hilton Rialto, to the concours site. Oh, and what a venue! Our host location for the concours, and additional functions over the next couple if days, was The American Muscle Car Museum (AMCM) in Melbourne, FL. The Museum contains a privately owned collection of over 350 vehicles. Mr. Mark Pieloch is the owner of the facility. He is a registered pharmacist and founder of a variety of businesses in the pet pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Pieloch’s success in the pet care industry allowed him to begin collecting muscle cars and vehicles of significance. The museum itself is roughly 123,000 square feet of display, storage, and vehicle service. The museum is not open to the public but is used for charitable events. Mr. Pieloch graciously offered access to the museum grounds for hosting multiple Zonefest events. Arriving early to the AMCM, quite a few Porsches were lined up for the concours. Others were parked opposite the concours area for events later that day, or by those who came to the museum to simply enjoy all that Zonefest offered. If one had to guess on the total number of Porsche cars and SUVs at the AMCM, it would approach 125 or more vehicles.
