I got an invitation on Facebook to a car meet at Mohegan Sun this past Sunday. The event was called “JDM Meets KDM,” but all makes, models, and countries of origin were welcome. My schedule opened up, so I took a drive down to check it out.
The 86 Owners of New England had the largest turnout. I counted 18 Scion FR-Ss and Subaru BRZs. Mine’s in the middle of the pack, next to the yellow FR-S.
The Korean brands were well represented, too. This line of Hyundais kept growing and growing throughout the meet.
I’ve never seen so many Evos in one place before, not even at a rally.
This Chrysler Crossfire turned quite a few heads, including mine. That’s unusual for a Crossfire.
A Toyota Corolla has been transformed into an art car tribute to veterans.
Someone pulled a Doug DeMuro and imported an R32 Skyline. It looks like it’s possible to legally register one in Connecticut.
This FR-S has a little something extra under the hood – a supercharger where the air box used to live. The owner says it bumps horsepower to 260-270. He’s still running the stock headers, and figured once he upgrades them it’ll make over 300hp. Someday, maybe…
There were a lot of cool cars, but most of all there were a lot of cool people. Everyone was mingling, talking, and checking out each other’s cars. It didn’t matter what the ethnicity of the cars was, or the owners, for that matter. It was just a bunch of car people, hanging out and having a good time. Best of all, everyone was well behaved and under a great deal of peer pressure to do so. There were no burnouts, drifts, or racing through the parking garage. As a result, security, who allowed us to be there under such conditions, had no issues with the meet and didn’t kick the group out.
The Washington Post recently published an article lamenting the end of car culture in the US because younger people aren’t interested in cars and don’t go to classic car meets. Jalopnik slammed this article, tearing it apart eight ways till Tuesday, and they were absolutely right in doing so. I’m not over the hill by any means, but I was certainly one of the oldest people at this meet (not that it mattered to anyone). These guys – and gals – are at least as interested in improving the appearance and performance of their cars as the old time hot rodders. They just do it to different cars. Instead of whitewalls and tail fins, it’s wheels and wings. Instead of tuning carburetors, they’re tuning ECUs (more about that in another article), and they know what they’re doing. And instead of, or in addition to, going to the drag strip, they’re going to autocrosses, HPDE events, and drift events. Anyone saying that Millennials don’t care about cars isn’t looking in the right place.
