Glancing east along White Rock's Marine Drive, Gary Yee summed up the occasion in one sentence:
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
The South Surrey man was among Ferrari enthusiasts who turned out to the 14900-block of Marine Drive Thursday morning in anticipation of the Ferrari Club of America's custom 599 HGTE Rally car.
The car – the last of its model to come off of the assembly line and worth around $325,000 – is making the rounds of FCA chapters across North America to commemorate the club's 50th anniversary, Passione. About 20 of those stops are in Canada.
Along the way, club members can apply to drive various legs of the year-long, 20,000-mile trek in exchange for a donation to Ronald McDonald House.
In Vancouver, the charity offers out-of-town families with seriously ill children support and a place to stay while their child receives medical treatment at BC Children's Hospital.
Vancouver resident Kevin Turner drove the car from Kelowna to Hope. While he declined to disclose the amount of his donation, he did say it was "certainly" worth it.
"You don't get an opportunity to do this very often," he said.
Thursday, cameras came out even before the car purred to a stop in the parking lot across from the Boathouse restaurant, driven from Vancouver by Roy Kan, past-director of the FCA's Western Canada region.
Kan added details of his "fantastic" drive to a log tracking the car's progress and passed a ceremonial baton to Will Diefenbach, the past-director of the Northwest FCA who will take the car to Seattle.
Shaun Sinclair, who is president of the local FCA chapter, said it's not just adults who are excited by the rally car.
At a stop Tuesday at Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver, a six-year-old boy fighting leukemia was "vibrating" with excitement at the chance to sit behind the wheel. That event, Sinclair said, raised about $3,000 for the children's charity.
The tour got underway last month in Monterey, Calif., and is to wrap up in Wisconsin next July.