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.

Around Town

‘A Pit Stop’: Organizers Rule Out ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ in 2017

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Caffeine & Carburetors, the popular gathering of auto enthusiasts in downtown New Canaan and, more recently, at Waveny Park, will not be held in 2017, according to the New Canaan resident who launched the events six years ago. Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street where informal gatherings of fellow specialty and classic car enthusiasts in 2010 swiftly outgrew the area immediately around his business, said he and fellow founders Peter Bush and Todd Brown are “putting Caffeine & Carburetors in a pit stop” for now. “After 24 or 25 shows over the past six years, it’s time to just revaluate the operation of it all,” Zumbach told NewCanaanite.com. “It takes a tremendous amount of effort, time, town resources, et cetera, to put successful shows together. I have other personal and professional projects I would like to approach this year.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Another Successful ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ Downtown as Rain Holds Off

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Thousands of auto enthusiasts joined baby stroller-pushing and dog leash-wielding New Canaanites downtown on Sunday morning for this season’s third installment of Caffeine & Carburetors. With a handful of sponsors that include Bankwell and Rand Insurance, the popular gathering of antique and specialty car enthusiasts featured somewhere between 900 and 1,000 autos for the second of two installments located in New Canaan’s business district (the fourth and final Caffeine & Carburetors will be held Oct. 16 at Waveny), officials said. “The car gods were looking out for us,” said Doug Zumbach, owner of Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street and founder of the event. “The weather changed dramatically from 80 percent thunderstorms to the sun is out.”

Though clouds threatened to soak the “show” mid-morning, the rain held off and a partly sunny, comfortable morning greeted visitors to Pine and Elm Streets, closed to pedestrian traffic and overseen by New Canaan Police and volunteers.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Caffeine & Carburetors Makes 2016 Waveny Debut

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Despite a rainy forecast and some early-morning precipitation, scores of locals and auto enthusiasts gathered in New Canaan Sunday for the 2016 Waveny debut of Caffeine & Carburetors. Directed by police as well as by volunteers recruited by Doug Zumbach to help operate the popular event, attendees moved strolled around the grounds near Waveny House, chit-chatting and snapping photos of classic and specialty cars parked on either side of the main road through the park from Lapham Road and in the lots near the mansion. Zumbach, who founded Caffeine & Carburetors as a small Sunday gathering outside his eponymous gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street, told NewCanaanite.com that the event went “very, very well.”

“I think more and more locals are coming,” Zumbach said about one hour into the morning gathering. “They’re poking their heads out of the window and still coming. It’s turned out to be a very good show.”

Sunday also is set to be a busy day downtown, with the 7th Annual Dog Days New Canaan to run at 1 p.m. at Pet Pantry on Grove Street.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Caffeine & Carburetors Opens 2016 Season in Downtown New Canaan

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An estimated 5,000 people and 1,000 cars visited downtown New Canaan on a clear, comfortable spring morning Sunday for the 2016 season opener of Caffeine & Carburetors, the auto enthusiast event that town resident Doug Zumbach launched more than one decade ago as an small gathering at his eponymous coffee shop on Pine Street. Vintage and specialty car lovers joined photo-snapping parents and residents holding leashes and pushing strollers up and down Pine and Elm Streets, while police and the Community Emergency Response Team directed traffic and ensured safety. Zumbach said the sunny skies helped draw the big crowds, and that people have been phone for a few days ahead of time to make inquiries about the popular gathering. “Could not have done it without the governing body of New Canaan, so I’m very happy,” Zumbach said. Sponsors include Bankwell and Rand Insurance, and FM 95.9 The Fox’s DJ and local resident Peter Bush helped emcee Caffeine & Carburetors.