Cars and Coffee Portland 5/30/15

"twinturbobmw" (twinturbobmw) 05/31/2015 at 10:50 • Filed to: Cars and Coffee, C&C Portland, PDX C&C, Portland, photography, twinturbobmw

8

12

Probably the hottest day of the year so far, so tons of people and cars showed up this weekend. This is the third week at the new location and so far it’s been fantastic. Cars started arriving over an hour early and it was packed until the end. Also seemed like a lot of people came for the first time, as there were quite a few new things I hadn’t seen before. The full album can be viewed !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

$kaycog > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 10:55

2

Aha! I see it!

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 10:58

1

The turnout for that looks like it was better than the first day a few weeks ago. Cool stuff.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 11:18

0

Do you mind if I save a few for wallpaper purposes?

whoarder is tellurium > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 11:44

3

No, seriously... awesome photography of some great cars.

RWS Motorsport > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 12:10

1

Stunning work as always. *high five*

camaroboy68ss > $kaycog 05/31/2015 at 12:15

0

I do too, sweet vette!

camaroboy68ss > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 12:18

0

hey there's my pickup

$kaycog > camaroboy68ss 05/31/2015 at 12:45

1

Smarty pants. ;D

twinturbobmw > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 05/31/2015 at 13:39

0

Yep! Go ahead

AnalogMan > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 13:57

0

I was at Cars & Coffee Portland yesterday. It was a great car ‘show’, and if you were coming purely as a spectator, there was a lot eye candy to drool over. But I have a bit of a different take on it. My disappointment - which I know was shared with some other attendees - is the creeping pretentiousness and class discrimination that has infected the meet.

Cars & Coffee Portland has changed a great deal in a short period of time. It used to be a very casual, informal gathering of car guys and their rides, who would all freely and openly mix together in the same area. There were always some cliques, and the late-model BMW/Porsche/Mercedes elitists would tend to cluster together and talk about which of their ‘favorite Porsches’ from their ‘collection’ they’ll bring next week, but it was all good, and everyone mixed it up together. Everyone talked and interacted with each other, and it was a lot of fun. It gave the gathering a lot of its character, that you could find a hopped-up Subaru, a 1930’s Packard, a new Ferrari, a 1960’s muscle car, a stock S2000, a new Challenger, and a slightly dinged up original Falcon station wagon all parked next to each other in a row. It was like a little treasure hunt, not knowing what you’d see next, and mirrored the eclectic personality of Portland.

Something fundamental has changed in this new location. Now there are ‘class’ distinctions. The first is the ‘exotic’ area for a small number of cars. I understand that owners of truly rare and ‘special’ (= expensive) cars want the premium treatment, so a special parking area is reserved for them. C&C even pretentiously had it on their FaceBook page, “If you have to ask if your car is exotic, then it isn’t”.

In addition to the small “exotic” lot, there’s a large main parking area next to World of Speed, and a second parking area across the street. C&C said they would fill these two areas sequentially. That’s not how it played out yesterday.

The organizers at the entrance seemed to be making some kind of instant judgement on the cars, and directing high-dollar cars into the main parking area (things that seem to cost low six figures and up), and directing more common cars (things that seemed to cost mere five figures) into the ancillary parking across the street. It seems that most Japanese cars were relegated to economy class, even a bunch of Nissan GT-R’s.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. Other people who were relegated to tourist class also felt put off by this apparent discrimination, and left early.

Is this kind of ostentatious segregation really needed? Are the owners of the mega-buck supercars really worried that they’ll catch some sort of disease from those of us with more lowly cars? A couple of months ago, when C&C Portland was looking for a new location, one of the organizers commented that they wanted to keep C&C more “exclusive” and not have it diluted by “common cars”. I guess this first class/business class/economy class structure is the result of that desire. If that’s the goal, why don’t those allowed into the ‘premium’ area just put their bank statements of net worth on the pavement and show them off, it would be easier than driving to Wilsonville.

Someone sardonically commented that it was just another sign of the Californication of Portland, of transplants from Silicon Valley remaking it into Palo Alto North. The money flowing into the area may make that devolution inevitable, but something unique will be lost.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 14:16

0

Thanks!

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > twinturbobmw 05/31/2015 at 17:02

0

ALL OF THE YISSSSSSS!!!

I would DD the funk out of this, for craziness sake.