If you've ever wondered what a family of nine does on a Saturday morning, the answer at our house is usually "stand in a parking lot and stare at a Lamborghini."
Our boys are car kids. Real ones. They can tell a Huracán from an Aventador by the taillights, they know which Porsche has the wing and which one just wants you to think it does, and every one of them has a camera roll that's about 80% other people's cars. Somewhere along the way the rest of us got pulled in, and now our weekends, our road trips and even our big family vacation get planned around where the good cars will be.
So this post is for them, and for every other parent who's been dragged to a cars and coffee at 7:45 a.m. with a teenager who suddenly has no trouble waking up. Below you'll find the car that finally ended up in our own garage, our pilgrimage to Pagani and Ferrari in Italy, and the places we've chased cars closer to home.
The Blue Porsche (Yes, It's Ours)
After years of photographing everyone else's cars, we finally bought one of our own: a blue Porsche 911 Targa.
The Targa was the right call for us. You get the classic 911 shape and the rear-engine sound the boys are obsessed with, plus that big roof panel that folds away so whoever's riding along gets open sky. It's the one car in the driveway nobody complains about running errands in.
The boys treat it like a member of the family. It gets washed more than some of them do, it's been the star of more phone videos than I can count, and there's a running negotiation over who gets the passenger seat.
Italy: Pagani and Ferrari
When we did Italy as a family in 2025, there was no version of that trip where we skipped Motor Valley. The boys would have staged a mutiny.
Pagani was the one they'd been dreaming about. Horacio Pagani's company builds a tiny number of cars a year in San Cesario sul Panaro, just outside Modena, and walking into that space feels more like an art gallery than a factory. Carbon fiber everywhere, original design sketches framed on brick walls, and cars sitting on pedestals like sculptures. Getting the boys to leave took a while.
Then Ferrari, in Modena. The Museo Enzo Ferrari is built around the house where Enzo was born and his father's old workshop, with a bright yellow roof shaped like a car hood sitting right next to it. Inside it's Ferrari history wall to wall, from the early racers to the modern hypercars. Seeing those cars in Enzo's own hometown hit differently than any YouTube video.
Planning your own Motor Valley day? Pagani, Ferrari, Lamborghini (in Sant'Agata Bolognese) and Ducati (in Bologna) are all within about an hour of each other. Book the factory and museum visits well before you fly, since the popular slots fill up.
Where Else We've Chased Cars
You don't need a plane ticket to feed this habit. Most of our best car days have been a few hours' drive from home.
National Corvette Museum, Bowling Green, Kentucky
If you drive between St. Louis and Nashville as often as we do, this one's barely a detour. The museum sits right next to the plant where GM builds every Corvette, and it covers seven decades of the car, including the famous sinkhole that swallowed eight Corvettes in 2014. The boys lined up for a group photo before scattering in four directions.
Prancing Horse of Nashville
Tennessee didn't have a Ferrari dealer until Prancing Horse of Nashville opened in Donelson, near the airport, in the fall of 2022. We went not long after, and the boys found an F40 parked on a glass mezzanine and didn't want to leave.
The goldRush Rally, June 2026
The goldRush Rally is a nine-day supercar road trip, and this year's route ran "Music City to Sin City": Nashville to Las Vegas by way of Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Deadwood, Big Sky, Jackson Hole and Salt Lake City. We caught the cars at Nashville Superspeedway, and it was wall-to-wall Koenigseggs, Lamborghinis and McLarens in rally wraps, with a crowd of kids holding cameras three deep. Ours fit right in.
Cars and Coffee, Every Chance We Get
The local meets are where the boys really light up. On a good morning you'll see a Pagani Huayra parked twenty feet from a Ferrari 360 Spider, and owners who'll happily pop the engine cover for a 15-year-old with a phone.
And the boys don't just look. They film, edit and post. Half the fun for them is the footage afterward.
Dealer showrooms and private collections count too. We've stopped for a baby-blue Huracán STO and a row of race-livery Porsche GTs, among plenty of others.
Next Up: Monaco
All of this is how our 2027 family trip ended up built around a Formula 1 race. We're heading to the Monaco Grand Prix in June 2027, then on to Paris. Follow along as we plan it.
Got car kids too? Tag us on Instagram at @adventureswith9.blog.
See Gavin's car photos