Around Town

‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ To Return: Organizers Seek Four Dates in 2018

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The New Canaan founder of Caffeine & Carburetors, the hugely popular grassroots gathering of specialty and classic auto enthusiasts, said Wednesday night that he’s seeking to hold four events in 2018. Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous coffee shop on Pine Street where Caffeine & Carburetors began with just 50 cars eight years ago, told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission that he’s seeking two dates at Waveny and two downtown. “We are deciding to come back this year after taking a year off,” Zumbach told commissioners at their regular meeting, held in Lapham Community Center. New this year, Zumbach said, will be an online registration system for car owners seeking to participate in the show, possible mobile app, increased insurance policy for the event (doubled to $2 million) and lecture series at New Canaan Library that touches on topics such as car restoration and teenage driving. The specific dates that Zumbach is seeking are April 22 (downtown), June 17 (Waveny), Sept.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Thousands Come To Downtown New Canaan for Lone ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ of 2017

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An estimated 1,000-plus classic and specialty cars drew thousands of auto enthusiasts to downtown New Canaan on Sunday morning for 2017’s sole installment of Caffeine & Carburetors. Founded by New Canaanite Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous gourmet coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets, the popular gathering on an overcast fall day touched by humidity saw crowds ogle and photograph rare, well-preserved and restored cars on pedestrian-only sections of Pine and Elm Streets from (about) 8 to 11:30 a.m.

Zumbach, who organizes the event with Peter Bush, Todd Brown and a team of volunteers, said the turnout was “beyond our expectations.”

“We don’t have a count but I would say in excess of 1,000 cars,” he told NewCanaanite.com during an interview as the show was underway. “I think we have over 300 Porsches on Elm alone. So I think the count could be above 1,000. Crowd count, I don’t know.”

The sheer number of auto appreciators milling about downtown New Canaan, many of them toting balloons and walking children and dogs, spoke to the great desire for participants to gather and share their love of cars.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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The Board of Selectmen said this week that New Canaan has paid about $5,390 in legal fees this fiscal year and nearly $19,000 overall for advice regarding the sober house on West Road. ***

Straight Outta Maple: We received the photo at right—depicting Jack Trifero and Terry Spring, arrested last week after refusing to leave the burial ground alongside the Merritt Village condo-and-apartment development on Maple and Park Streets—with a caption reading that the pair were “carrying the ONLY weapon they had at their unlawful arrest, a zoning map of the Maple Street Cemetery.” Trifero also supplied his statement to police in which he said an owner of the property threw rocks at him and one hit his leg. “I feel he was also throwing them at Terry—so I was concerned. After about 5 or 6 stones, he stopped. I felt it was an unprovoked violent act.”

***

New Canaan Police at about 6 p.m. on Sept.

Business

Sidewalk Sale: Return of Caffeine & Carburetors Announced as Throngs of Bargain-Hunters Hit Downtown New Canaan [PHOTOS]

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Scores of bargain-hunters descended on downtown New Canaan on a tolerably warm Saturday for the 52nd annual Village Fair and Sidewalk Sale. Merchant booths on Main, Elm and Forest Streets sold out well ahead of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce’s deadline, and shoppers moved through areas cordoned off for pedestrians to peruse racks of clothes and tables of goods, visiting the Pop Up Park for live music and food and riding on “zippy pets” where Karl Chevrolet and the New Canaan YMCA set up at Main and Elm. “The weather is going to be great—it’s not 99 degrees,” Chamber Executive Director Tucker Murphy said. “This is all good.”

Doug Zumbach, owner of Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street, in the afternoon announced that Caffeine & Carburetors—originally ruled out for 2017—would make a special return to downtown New Canaan on Sunday, Sept. 17.

Business

‘The Cultivated Collector’: Classic and Exotic Car Showroom, Clubhouse Planned for Vitti Street

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A new business featuring classic and exotic cars is slated to open this spring in a largely disused Vitti Street lot and structure that once housed an auto body shop—the latest dramatic change in a corner of downtown New Canaan where officials envision a more vibrant, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood. ‘The Cultivated Collector’ at 19 Vitti St. will include a street-level showroom of what founder Matthew Ivanhoe called “investment-grade collectible vehicles,” second-level “clubhouse” for auto enthusiasts seeking camaraderie and connections to services for the owners of the valuable cars themselves. “It is our objective to be a shining cultural Mecca that represents the town,” Ivanhoe, a Greenwich resident and former principal at a Bedford Hills, N.Y.-based auto business that last year sponsored New Canaan’s popular Caffeine & Carburetors gathering. “We are not just car enthusiasts—we are art collectors, we are wine collectors, we are watch collectors, and we hope to share that with the town and be a beacon that represents the change that this area is undergoing.”

Ivanhoe underscored that The Cultivated Collector will serve as a passive space for auto enthusiasts and is not a repair shop or anything similar.