Arizona has been setting records this month with its weather, but instead of hot temperatures like you might expect, the records being broken involve rain. On Friday, the day before the show, the heavens opened up, all the way until early Saturday morning, breaking a 22 year record of no rain in the first two weeks of June. While this is great for the climate, rain has never been good for an outdoor car show, at least in my experiences.
The clouds did not let up at all on the day of the show, and in some places, rain still fell. So, despite arriving even earlier than normal for Cars and Coffee in Gainey Ranch this June, the show was smaller than usual. I did not notice until a friend mentioned it later, but there was not a single Ferrari 458 and only a few Lamborghini Gallardos, McLarens (650S and 12C), and Corvettes of any generation, all cars that usually run rampant. However, while the usual suspects were not around, some other interesting metal showed up. For example, two R32 Skylines.
Yes, two R32s from Japan. Now that the R32 is 25 years old, the antiquated import ban on foreign cars no longer applies to the first years of the R32 generation. With legal importation now possible, R32s have been popping up everywhere. Godzilla/a hero for the Gran Turismo generation is finally here. I knew there was a sizable Skyline community in AZ, but I've only seen one before roughly a year ago. Here, a blue GT-S and a white GT-R were up for display. I didn't realize I took so few photos of them, which is a bummer since I don't know when I'll see them again. With the import ban lifted though, hopefully it won't be a long time.
Walking around the rather-empty parking lot, I came across a car I haven't seen in a long time: a black Dodge Viper ACR-X. If you think they look aggressive in pictures, they look even more so in person. Yet, the muscular curves and angry vents and wings all come together to form a pleasing look, even if it looks like it wants to eat your firstborn child for breakfast.
Parked next to it was a newcomer that I have never seen before: A Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo wearing a Vorsteiner VR-T body kit. I have to say, the body kit looks fantastic. The black-on-white aesthetic is extremely pleasing to the eye, and the kit flows extremely well with the body lines of the 997. The cloudy backdrop of the rare June storms further added to this look, as I always find direct sunlight tends to make white cars look less amazing from all the glare and reflection.
Right across from the Viper and the 997 were two real treats, what I think can be called the "star cars" of this month's show: A Maserati 250S and an old Alfa Romeo open wheel race car, which my friend says is an older Formula One feeder series car. Two race cars of a past era, in wonderful condition in the present for others to look at. Surrounded by more modern cars, it is amazing seeing how much automobiles have evolved over time. This is a part of what I love about this Cars and Coffee meet: the diversity. Imported Skylines, cars like these, modern hypercars like the 918 and LaFerrari, and hot hatches like Focus STs can occupy the same show and all earn appreciation.
A short walk towards the other end of the row of parking spaces results in another interesting sight that I have not seen before at this show: two Ariel Atoms, one in the newest 3 trim line. I love cars like the Atom; they take Colin Chapman's adage of "Simplify, then add lightness" to a whole new level. Big engines making lots of power is one way of achieving speed, but I have always loved the other option of reducing weight. Weight reduction creates many benefits, but one of them is looking as awesome and unconventional as cars like the Atom or X-Bow.
Speaking of diversity, this car was also at the show. I and my friends have no idea what it is, nor did any of the people around it when I was present. All I know is that it's a kit car, and a good looking one at that. Protip: If you want to determine if a car like this is a kit or not, check the engine. Most of the time, racecar-like kits like these are powered by Chevrolet's ubiquitous LS engine.
For this show, and all others in the future, I tried to limit the number of photos I took. My usual strategy was "take as many pictures of as many cars as possible so I can flood my Flickr and Instagram page with as many hashtags as possible to get more recognition". However, this meant I would have to first sort and then edit an enormous amount of pictures, taking up a large amount of time. Then, I would have to upload all of said pictures, and with my house's poor upload speed, that could take quite a while. So, there are many cars that I did not photograph that were present, such as a tuned C5 Corvette Z06 with nitrous, several Mk. IV Toyota Supras (which I did want to photograph but I could not find them later), and many miscellaneous cars. However, here are a few that I did catch, some quite interesting:
For example, continuing the topic of diversity, a lowered (what I believe to be) Cadillac 62 series was present and parked along side. While they make for some cool looking classic cars now, I cannot believe that this is what people once wanted and bought. Symbolic of prosperous times in post-war America, perhaps, but still rather... unnecessary, to quote James May. But again, it is an interesting specimen in relation to the evolution of the modern automobile.
Another interesting car is the DeTomaso Mangusta. When I first saw it, I thought it was a Pantera, but then I noticed everything about it was... off. I knew DeTomaso made other cars, but the Pantera was the only one I knew of. It's interesting seeing the Pantera lines in the Mangusta, since the Pantera succeeds it. It was also interesting for me when I found out that the rear covers open up in a gull-wing fashion, something I've never seen before but I think is pretty neat.
The Viper was striking to me because I have never seen that blue on one before. I should probably not get into the habit of taking photos of what I think are "unique" or "interesting" Vipers, though, since Dodge's special 1 of 1 program allows for over 25 million different unique variants. That would be a ton of photos.
Walking back over towards the Skylines to meet another photographer, Brenden Cabano (@cabanophotography), I got ensnared by some beautiful Toyobarus. They were all Scion FRSes, but I've never felt comfortable calling them that, since putting the 86/GT86 under Scion's name is Toyota's attempt at keeping the sub-brand alive. Regardless of the name, all of them looked excellent. Unfortunately, I did not take any detailed shots of the white one, but I love the white-on-gold wheel combination. And while I'm not usually a fan of deep-dish wheels, these looked proper on it. There was also the orange FR-S, which had an interesting wrap job on the front splitter and headlight housing and wheels with an amazing shade of purple. I appreciate this not only for how it creates a nice theme but also helps me differentiate it online where I tried to find the owner, which made me see that modified orange FRSes are actually a lot more common than I thought. However, I did find the owner of the third FRS on Instagram (@azfrs86), and learned that the brilliant color-shift of it is a liquid wrap of color shift pearls CX36, done by Desert Dip AZ (@desertdipaz). While I tried to bring out the color-shift nature of the wrap and the colors of it in the photos, it simply looks amazing in person, especially when walking around it. It's always great to see how tight-knit and big car communities are.
At around this time I met up with my friends, and we all felt the show was already winding down since not as many people showed. However, Arizona's Bugatti Veyron owner (are there more Veyrons in Arizona? I've only seen his before and no one else has told me there are more) rolled in, and because he parked in an area not surrounded by cars and people were not so close to it, I decided to take a few more shots from angles I could not have taken before. I finally learned the owner's name from a friend, and I actually got to talk to him for a few minutes. He's a pretty cool guy, especially in handling small children swarming and asking to sit in the car.
After this, I talked with my friends for a while, and just when I thought i was done taking photos, another car caught my eye: A Nismo GT-R. I've never seen one in real life before, and I have no idea how common they are, I wanted to take a look at it. Being a fan of the GT-R, I wanted to see Godzilla's newest clothing that keeps it relevant in the ever-escalating super/hypercar war of the decade. And boy, does Godzilla look sharp. All those sharp edges may look awkward from some angles, but they're interesting and nice looking details up close. Maybe being an engineering student interested in aerodynamics is biasing me here, but still, I think it looks fantastic. And the performance to back it up is surely nothing to scoff at. I ended up meeting the owner of the car on Instagram, too (@f7lthy_samurai), and he was super cool with me obsessing over the car. He also owns a GT-R with an Alpha 9 package on it, but unfortunately I was too consumed by the Nismo GT-R to photograph that, too.
Car meets are always fun. Even when you're alone, or the show seems small due to rain, you can still make friends and see interesting machines by chatting with other people present, who all share the same interest as you: a love for cars.
Gallery of more photos:
