Car meets can be tough to run. Organizers have to balance the needs and desires of the attendees, neighboring people and businesses, and property owners. In an effort to keep their event alive, the Coffee and Cars meet in Houston, Texas has taken drastic action. It’s instituted an outright ban on Camaros, Chargers, and Mustangs.
The problem will be familiar to anyone that’s hung around a local car meet. The trouble normally starts when it comes time to leave. Engines roar to life, with the more boisterous attendees revving aggressively. An expectant audience then lines the exits, smartphones aloft, hoping to film something ridiculous. Usually, it’s a burnout, or a hard launch, or someone losing control and wrapping their car around a lightpost.
As much as these antics light up social media, they’re anathema to the continued existence of a local meet. Police and the general public don’t look kindly upon this sort of behavior. Too often, as well, it ends in tears, when drivers with little sense or talent hurt themselves or injure bystanders.
The Coffee and Cars event in Houston takes place the first Saturday of every month at the POST Houston entertainment venue. Organizers have long tried to deal with the issue of poor behavior from attendees. Like most meets, it has clearly posted rules and signage for attendees to leave calmly and avoid horseplay. With this call seemingly unheeded by a select few, the event has seen fit to instead try and ban offenders with a broad-strokes ruling. Thus, temporarily, Mustangs, Camaros, and Chargers will be unwelcome at the Houston event.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CzPhwDeL78d/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
The ruling was posted after “burnouts and revving” that took place at the November event, according to organizers. The Autopian has seen private footage of a modern Dodge Charger performing a large burnout near the event. The video, captured by a bystander from a distance, shows the driver of the Charger executing a 360-degree donut in the middle of an intersection. A gaggle of smartphone-toting spectators swarm the vehicle as it pirouettes on the street in a thick cloud of tire smoke.
It’s unclear whether this specific event inspired the ban, or whether it was the combination of multiple incidents. Regardless, the brazen disregard for safety could clearly be seen to reflect poorly on the event. When queried, organizers provided The Autopian with a press release regarding the matter.
“Safety is a cornerstone of our events,” the organizers stated. “We take significant steps to ensure it, such as hiring security officers for each gathering, comprehensive planning, ample event staffing, and clear communication of our rules against reckless behaviors like revving engines and performing burnouts.” The organization went on to decry the current state of events. “Despite our rigorous safety protocols and clear stance against disruptive behaviors, it is disheartening that a minority still chooses to behave in a manner that endangers others and disrespects the community’s wishes and the effort put into each event.”
A model-based ban is an interesting move that plays on stereotypes in the car scene. Mustang owners are so famous for spinning out of control at meets that they functionally became a meme. Similarly, Camaros and Chargers are muscle cars that are beloved for their ability to generate copious amounts of tire smoke.
@cph_carspotter Build vs bought. 🛠️💰 #houston #bugatt #chiron #chevrolet #corvette #burnout #carsandcoffee
Recent events have seen multiple cars doing burnouts in the roads surrounding the meet.
Whether banning these cars solves the problem remains to be seen. Right off the bat, it’s easy to see some flaws in the reasoning. It’s curious to ban the Dodge Charger with no mention of the Dodge Challenger, which shares similar drivetrains and a propensity towards burnouts. The Corvette, too, is a capable vehicle for such shenanigans, but it is not subject to the ban.
It may be that the organizers have noted the actions of certain individuals and banned their cars to try and keep them away. As a temporary measure, it could serve as a deterrent to further bad behavior. A preliminary shot across the bow that reminds everyone to pull their heads in, lest they too be banned.
The measure is, nevertheless, not a surefire solution. A video from automotive YouTuber El Ceza shows cars leaving the earlier October meet, with vehicles of all stripes breaking the stated rules. It clearly shows that bad behavior has been an issue at the Houston event for some time. There’s a Lamborghini revving, and an Mk IV Supra doing much the same. We see burnouts from a number of cars, too, including a 1970 Chevy Malibu getting seriously sideways. Meanwhile, the driver of a Hyundai Genesis Coupe is seen oversteering near spectators, thankfully correcting before it hit the sidewalk. It bears noting none of these vehicles would be subject to the temporary ban going forward.
The ban will also surely put well-behaved owners offside. Nobody likes being punished for something they didn’t do, after all. At the same time, the organizers find themselves in a tough place. It’s difficult to identify individuals that break the rules as they leave the event, and even harder to police their entry to the next one. With previous calls to behave unheeded, a new tool was needed. The hope will be that the ban either keeps offenders away, or scares them into behaving, whatever car they show up in.
If the ban fails to quell bad behavior, it’s easy to imagine the event becoming far more difficult to run. As a popular meet, it sees hundreds of spectators lining the streets. It would only take one crash to put the event across every local news channel. It’s unlikely the organizers themselves or the property owner want that kind of negative attention, nor would they want to see anyone hurt.
It’s clear that there’s a whole lot of love for the Coffee and Cars meet in Houston. Here’s hoping that can inspire some of the more excitable attendees to reign in their right foot and leave in a calm and dignified manner.
First off, in this litigious environment , I give credit to anybody who will even sponsor a Cars and Coffee.
I usually attend Katie’s Cars and Coffee ( Great Falls VA) , Annapolis and Hunt Valley Md Cars and Coffee. The commonality is that these are exceptionally well run and very little instances of “dickbaggery”. Police will patrol nearby but the vast majority of attendees are there for cars and not the drama.
I’ve never been to the Houston C&C but the video fails highlight how a percentage of attendees and ruin an event
Katie’s Great Falls is world class, so many cool cars and chill people – the specter of VA Police helps keep it calm, I’m sure
Hunt Valley is a nice one, I’ve only been once, but need to go again. It’s a really nice drive through horse country, too
Katie’s is also great because it’s generally fun old cars and not 25 identical late-model whatevers sitting next to each other in a parking lot. I got some photographs of 356s, some 2002s, and even a Vincent Black Shadow last time I went.
I guess I an am anomaly in the car show world. I have no need or desire to show off, I have nothing to prove. I also had a Subaru that I have not vaped in.
Cars are machines, people are idiots. Ban them and not the ride. The fact this action was taken by the origination makes me not want to go. Like I am singled out an moron in a commoners car vs a real show car.
There is an interesting situation here.
Let’s be honest, everybody wants to have fun (tonight).
But dumb asses are everywhere. And we don’t seem to know how to deal with this as a society. Or we just don’t care to. Some people just think rules and laws only apply to the other guy, not them.
(see the trial of a certain dbag currently underway in NY for your best example.)
And just like with the gun situation, most seem to feel it’s always the “other guy” who is a fuck up. YMMV.
Was that a Wang Chung reference?
I’d be curious to what effect the non-enforcement of laws has had on this, especially with traffic laws. We all know people think of the speed limit as the minimum speed to go, not the top. But there are so so many laws on the books, many of which aren’t enforced – you need to either get rid of the laws that aren’t enforced, or no one has any real reason to believe that you have the right to actually enforce laws in the first place.
I think non-enforcement has to be a part of the issue. Our roads/towns are also designed in a way that allows (and sometimes even encourages) shit driving.
Not to mention, everyone has lost their goddamn minds in the past several years.
Yeah in my town the Main Street used to have a trolley, so the street is SUUUUPER wide, which just encourages people coming off the state highway that turns into main street to gun it. My aunt has been leading a charge to redesign the streetscape to narrow the lanes, put in a green space boulevard style median, and get it under control. People have been hit trying to cross the street where there should be no issues.
Hooray for your aunt! In the past couple of years, we have had some streets narrowed to (FINALLY) add sidewalks in an area that is economically depressed and pedestrian heavy. The people are safer and the neighborhoods are coming to life.
It has been multiple, multiple, multiple events. Houston C&C got shut down right before the pandemic as reported from the old site. A good friend of mine was one of the original group that brought C&C to Houston over 13 years ago and it just got to be too much for him. They’ve been kicked out of at least 5 different venues all over Houston due to this. The guy who took over from him tried a rotating venue with mostly curated high-end Italian cars but that kinda ruined it for me. I’d much rather look at an old Gremlin or Marlin than a dozen Ferraris, but that’s just me. I remember how great it was in the early days but I don’t bother attending anymore.
Was that the guy with the three wheeler (a Morgan? Been so long I forget)? I have tons of pictures of my MGA next to really cool cars in uptown park from that original era.
That’s him. That wasn’t a real Morgan, it was a JZR trike with a MotoGuzzi motor. They look the same though.
Place temporary speed bumps every 30 feet along the exit road for 300 yards.
For a moment I thought you had a good idea, but I imagine a lot of lowered or “extremely-low-by-default” cars show up to these things?
I got a 1.5″ lift on my Prius v specifically because of some large speed bumps I deal with regularly that I had to go snail-slow to cross beforehand. Now it’s a little more forgiving.
Good points. Would very low speed bumps disrupt burnouts enough to accomplish the job? What about those rumble-strips when you are approaching a construction zone? Any temporary versions of those? One only needs to take the fun out of the burnouts.
We sometimes out low speed bumps out on a drive that dissects the cruise in’s we hold. With the cities permission of course.
My 04 Mach 1 is old enough that I often fly under the radar with it being lumped into the stereotypical Mustang crowd. It is also, in my opinion, the least Mustang looking bodystyle out of them all. Which is good, because I find that I do not get along with the vast majority of other Mustang owners I just like the New Edges.
’02 GT here. Have loved the body style from the day I got her…a blend of new and old design cues from across the eras, but without the full on retro S197 and its diluted-but-still-there successors.
It has always been my favorite. Being born in 93 that was also still a newer car about the time I hit driving age so the Mach 1 was always “THE” car for me since I do not care for the S197, with the exception of the GT500s. I had an 04 V6 for 7 or so years but once I graduated college my gift to myself was buying this Mach 1. I briefly owned a 67 Mustang as well but it was more of a novelty I got on a trade and wasn’t for me. I do think it being the least Mustang looking Mustang is a big part of why I like it if I am being honest.
It’s definitely it’s own thing, if cobbled together from previous Mustangs. I enjoy that a lot.
Your shaker scoop is right out of ’69/’70/my fake one is from the early ’80s Foxes; the rear spoiler is from the huge early ’70s models; and of course the fake Shelby side scoops. Above the beltline, it’s completely the ’90s jellybean SN95.
It fits nicely for a Mustang that always meant to make the most of what Ford had on hand before a totally new one.
Definitely a cool combo of part. The Mach has that extra little bit with it being a R code car and having the 4v engine as well. Mine has the extra perk of an 04 Cobra IRS swapped over as well which totally changes the driving dynamic of the car. On the Mach the interior is special too, with the seats and gauges being made to reflect the appearance of the originals. To further that I also replaced my grille emblem with the tri-bar pony.
Ah the fabled IRS swap…you’ve got the best of both worlds w/that. I swapped out my stock springs for the fairly rare Ford Racing “B” springs (the progressive setup) and love ’em as an improvement that still rides well on the road.
The interior is an underrated part of the special
New Edge models…Ford did a great job on the little touches like the gauge font. Mine has the standard cloth seats, but Ford still nicely channeled the ’60s pony package seating look with them.
Cool re the tribar pony. I added the year-correct rocker panel stripes to mine, as they were originally a GT, not a base model, thing.
The only issue I have had with the IRS is that I have an intermittent ABS light and the sensors are nearly impossible to find since they are exclusive to the Cobras. My first 04 had the Ford Racing B spring on it when I first got it, they rode great.
What shocks (sorry, gotta be autopian…dampers) do you run? I need to replace mine soon.
I have Bilsteins on all 4 corners. Last I saw they were available fairly cheap on Rockauto and a few others sites.
Thanks!
’10 V6 Convertible here. I try to avoid places where Mustangs congregate because of not wanting to deal with/get lumped in with hooning-minded Mustang drivers.
I bought a slow-ass one on purpose. It’s for fair weather cruising, and taking in the journey. (and it was a few grand cheaper to get one with the “less desirable” engine)
That is a particularly weird year given the new body with the old drivetrain. The one Mustang event I do go to is the Mustang Week car show since it is pretty close for me.
Yup. I am nothing if not seeking out the weird cars now and then.
I bought a 2003 Mach 1 new and swapped the rear end with a 2004 Cobra IRS a couple years later. It was a great car. Had it for 11 years. Then switched over to a 4wd Tacoma to satisfy new interests in the dirt. Love that truck. Still have it. Though it is about to depart. Doubt I’ll ever own a Mustang again, but I’m glad to see some enthusiasm for those years.
It is my favorite by far, and the only generation of Mustang I would own honestly.
My local car show disinvited the Mustang club and it is the best show around with lots of old cars from all over the world. We still get plenty of First Gen through Fox Bodies. and even the occasional Mustang II because they are interesting. You can see modern Mustangs, Chargers, or Camaros on the street, in a parking lot, or even at a dealer. Yes they have shiny paint – BECAUSE THEY ARE NEW. Seriously, no one wants to see your 3 year old Hellcat.
Sunday we had 200 cars including pre-war American, lovely 60’s-80’s European, classic muscle cars, custom roadsters, rat rods, racecars, microcars, McLarens, Ferraris, Lambos, JDM. And not a modern pony car in sight. I parked my ’71 Fiat between a Lotus Elan and an original Mini. My personal idea of autopia.
Amen to that. Around here we refer to stuff like this as RATs, as in Regular-Ass Traffic.
I love the showcase of people with more dollars than sense!
Fine. Do what you gotta do. But do we need to keep ignoring the guy in the Cugnot Steamer?
My friends and I stopped going to the Cars & Coffee here in Plano, before Covid, because of Mustangs, Camaros, and Challengers. However, the problem has nothing to do with burnouts.
The problem is that there are so many of them and the space for the event is not limitless. It became impossible for our Italian Car Club to find room for our cars. There were tons of Mustangs,Camaros, and Challengers on any given Sunday; none of them more than 3 or 4 years old, and most with no mods except perhaps nice wheels. It just made for a boring show (unless you were part of that clique). It got to where there was a lot more variety in the visitor parking lot than in the show.
To quote Yogi Berra:
“Nobody goes there anymore – it’s too popular.
It might be better now, but I’m not willing to get up at 6 a.m. for a 9 a.m. show and still end up with my car in visitor parking.
Disclaimer – my car isn’t that remarkable in itself but it is 50 years old and comparatively rare.
I’d rather see a 50-year-old, comparatively rare ANYTHING than a row of new, nearly identical cars. The latter is just a car dealership!
Amen!
Irvine Cars and Coffee “banned” newer vehicles for this reason years back (the event doesn’t even exist anymore) and it rustled a lot of jimmies, but I couldn’t blame them.
I’m torn on this as although I’d love to lump modern Mopar/Mustang drivers into the same group of douchebags, it’s obviously not ALL of them.
Yeah, but the problem is, you can’t verify whether someone is or is not not a douchebag without a visual. And by the time you can see the Affliction shirt and jeans with overly complicated back pockets, it’s too late because he’s already there
Luckily the bumper guards on Charger/Challengers are visible from a ways off.
In my area we’ve had several C&C events shut down due to these shenanigans. The largest local event, Cars & Coffee Morrisville, is massive. It attracts 3000-4000 cars every month and takes up an entire office park.
The efforts to stop the hooning and the YouTuber lineups at the exits to this event have been ongoing, with very close cooperation from the local PD. After things got bad this past summer with a Charger doing donuts in an intersection, the police presence has increased and they’ve begun parking cruisers in the traffic lanes of the exit road and staggering them every few hundred yards so that exiting cars must negotiate a low-speed slalom with cop cars instead of cones. This method has been very effective. Even the most smooth-brained hooligan is going to think twice before screwing around in close proximity to multiple police cruisers.
I need to make my way up there sometime. I usually go to Cars and Coffee Wilmington because it is local and convenient, but a change of scenery is nice.
It’s worth the drive. If you do, look for TriangleRAD, we normally park together at the bottom of the hill. Also, you should drag SWG with you, I’ve been trying to get him to come up for one.
I actually did make it out to a TriangleRAD last year in my 99 Miata. Just barely made the cutoff. It was a good time. If I run into SWG I will kidnap him too
Caffeine and Carburetors in New Canaan, CT mostly solved it once their Waveny Park shows ballooned into 1500+ car events: They helped police identify the best places to catch them, and the police are just lying in wait.
Despite the fact it’s well known the police are all over the place, a few people try things and get pulled over INSTANTLY. The exit is technically in a school zone, so despite it being held on Sundays I’m sure the punishment is extra fierce.
Police get some revenue, the nonsense is crushed, and it remains a huge, safe show with such a volume of cars that there’s always some great quirky stuff to find.
I have been there a couple of times, and while massively popular, I have never seen any stupidity. The cops are there for the right reason and do exactly the job that the town needs them to do (funny how rare it is to get to say that). My 48hp kei car gets love there, too.
There hasn’t ever been anything serious like burnouts, stunting, etc. However I remember immediately hearing of a DeTemaso Pantera leaving on the school side in a ‘spirited fashion’. Was maybe doing 40 in a 25, and got eviscerated for it.
I’ll have to check that out sometime. Just up the road in Otis, Ma. Bicycled through New Cannan just a few weeks ago with a few friends.
Guys, cars don’t hit people, people hit people. /s
Axktually… it IS the cars that are hitting people, because people aren’t in control of them.
/joke
A well-run large show will have a cop stationed at the exit, both to direct traffic from the parking lot and to prevent anti-social behavior. That is the simplest and easiest solution to this problem.
This has been a long time coming.
Not sure how I feel about it, but if it helps keep bystanders safer, then it works for me.
We live in a land of imbeciles.
I feel like excluding a certified three letter German brand is a bit of slight. Our we not as irresponsible as Challenger people! We’ve spent years terrorizing freeways and parking lots, to be out banned by a freaking Mustang. They keep their coolant inside the car, like uncultured swine. You take the fluid, and you leak it all over the parking lot. That way they know you’ve been there! I fell unheard. Do better E46 owners of the greater Houston area.
How wonderful, such a broad stroke banning those damn Inline 6 having Mustangs and those obscenely powerful Iron Duke powered Camaros! They might even chirp the tires! OH THE HORROR!
I mentioned on Slack that three guys should show up with an Iron Duke Camaro, a Mustang II, and a Charger 2.2, just to see what they say.
I dunno, they’d probably somehow mistake the Charger for a Daytona.
It could just as easily be the identical Plymouth Turismo Duster, which is not on the banned list at all.
I know it’s going to seem un-‘Merican to many. But tiered licensing based on power to weight ratio would help. It’s absurd that one can drive a vehicle with the same horsepower and torque as most race cars on a standard license. There should be a minimum skill level for driving some of these cars.
plenty of cars on the market make way more horsepower than those three, and don’t generally cause any problems – the issue is the particular demographic that A) buys these, B) brings them to car meets, and C) feels compelled to try and show off to crowds of middle school kids on the way out. Its really the combination of the three, take any one of them away and you break the chain.
Totally true. I’ve called out one of the more notorious local YT’ers that posts “full send” videos of cars burning out leaving car meets. One local C&C got shut down and his channel was specifically called out by the organizers as being a contributing factor. His attitude was, “I’m just filming, I’m not making anyone do anything.”
Yes, absolutely this. Also, I think size-based licenses, as well. Driving a Miata is a different skill than driving a lifted F350. And a towing endorsement, please. Some people do NOT know how to tow a trailer, and it’s a problem with our system that we don’t require people to learn before they tow.
Absolutely on the towing. I can’t believe we allow people to tow small homes around without any sort of training or any sort of testing in place.
I really like the towing endorsement idea. Towing is just a different ballgame compared to normal driving especially with the huge travel trailers that I see more and more of.
1000% with you on size-based licenses! You are correct on skill. But I will add: if the lifted F350 will cause massively more damage in an accident than the Miata.
Yes, good add. That is one of the main reasons you should need to prove your skill in driving one.
A few months ago I was moving house, so I’d rented a big van, it was at least five meter long (~16 feet), and I had real trouble manoeuvring it in tight spaces. About half way through the second day I realised, I couldn’t pass my test in this.
Most of the driving was ok, but I couldn’t pass the “manoeuvres” part of the UK test in it, and yet my license still allowed me to drive it legally.
I find it amazing that people in this country, almost unanimously believe that there are hoards of people on the road that shouldn’t be driving. Yet no one seems to be willing to generate the funding or put a system in place to fix this. There should be far more required training, legitimate and standardized testing, and tiered licenses so that 17 year old Aiden doesn’t mow down a bunch of cyclists with the brodozer his dad bought for him. Licenses based on size/weight/and power. Licenses that prove you know how to tow a trailer, etc.
People want shitty drivers off the road, but they don’t want to be inconvenienced by showing they aren’t the shitty drivers. Because “freedom” or whatever. (And maybe because some part of them wonders if they are the shitty driver.)
Well, or freedumb.
It’s Entitlement. Plain and simple. People see driving as a right and not a privilege.
Everyone (ok, 73% of drivers) thinks they’re a good driver. It’s all about regulating all those OTHER bad drivers — but not them.
The problem is that licensing of motor vehicles is not an appropriate duty for the Federal Government: it’s a right reserved to the individual states. Thus you would need all 50 states to standardize and that ain’t never gonna happen. We can’t even get the various states to agree that safety inspections are a good idea…which scares the living hell out of me.
For that matter, there is still a state where the legal age to marry is… 14. Bet you can’t guess which one. The answer is in the link below but no fair posting that – just post if you guessed right or wrong – and let every body play
https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/marriage-age-by-state/
That was surprising! However, I bet the age in one of those “unavailable” states is unavailable because there is no age limit.
Idaho finally set a minimum age for marriage just a couple years ago. On the second or third try at passing such a law.
Motor vehicles, yes. Licenses to drive, no. For example, CDL requirements are consistent from state to state. It would not take an act of Congress for the states to enact consistent driving license requirements for motor homes and travel trailers.
CDL requirements are part of interstate commerce, placing that under the commerce clause and in the hands of the Federal Government. However, individual driving does not fall under any authority of the Federal Government. Hauling weight does not fall automatically under any authority of the Federal Government. So yes, it would take an act of Congress, creating that authority for the Feds.
You might be correct. The DOT would have to argue stepping in to regulate — meaning make consistent — licensing drivers of heavy non-commercial vehicles would make interstate commerce safer.
Today, a California Class C driver can operate any motorhome regardless of GVWR. However, a Nevada driver must posses a Class A or B license when operating a 26,000+ vehicle of any kind including motorhomes. I would expect similar discrepancies across the states. What I pointed out doesn’t impact interstate commerce and wouldn’t fall under the Raymond Motor decision.
My point is, if there is a run of notorious motorhome accidents on highways involving Class C drivers, my opinion is the DOT might act if Congress didn’t.
This did not surprise me, but only because it was a bar trivia question I encountered a few months ago. There were a lot of looks of disbelief when that answer was revealed, lol.
I think the problem here is less skill and more a degree of stupidity and narcessism. All of the driving endorsements in the world doesn’t mean that an idiot showoff won’t do a burnout near a crowd of people in an unsafe environment. It would just mean they know how to drive safely and choose not to.
There isn’t really a test for stupid.
I think this helps in two ways. One, it weeds out people unwilling to put in the effort to learn. If you have to work toward the license, maybe you’ll respect it. Two, you strip people of the higher licensing. In the US, we don’t like to strip people of their license, since driving is almost a necessity, but we could take away their high power privileges without wondering if they live somewhere with any public transit.
I’m definitely not as optimistic as you that something of that nature will work. It’s not like people who actually race – even in higher series’ where you do need special certification – don’t constantly do stupid shit to show off.
The extra hoops just mean someone will find a way to avoid them – see the SCCA requirement on the Cobra R back in the ’90s – or just ignore the lessons learned to show off. I mean these burnouts are all filmed, cops can run the plates and charge for stunting or dangerous driving. And they still do it.
Sure, people will skirt rules. Sure, they’ll still do dumb stuff. But measures like Shinynugget suggests will reduce the number of people doing the dumb things.
It’s like a padlock. Sure, someone can defeat it pretty easily, but it’s going to make some people at least think twice.
It’s not really a counter-argument for me to say “I don’t think it will” but, well, I don’t think it will. As someone else pointed out elsewhere in the comments, heavy police presence doesn’t necessarily stop them, bans like this don’t necessarily stop them, the fact that they’re filmed and easily found and prosecuted doesn’t stop them… At least the heavy police presence stops the activity at the beginning, and is likely the only way to handle it.
It’s a small and dangerous minority that does these stunts, and they know damn well that they’re doing stuff that’s dangerous and illegal – and simply don’t care. What is an extra license going to do? While the endorsement may be smart for regular drivers, this would not change the behavior at these events that prompt these bans.
Sure, they know it’s dangerous and illegal, but it’s not like they’re being stripped of their licenses. And it’s not like they had to do anything special to get the license that allows them to drive those vehicles. A system like this could allow for prompt removal of the endorsement. And the registration, since they’d no longer have the endorsement required.
I have known CDL holders who drink and drive. But most don’t, because they know they’ll lose their CDL if they get caught.
Alternatively, we start stripping people of their licenses for pulling this crap, but we’d want better public transit so that they can still be productive members of society.
You could partially strip people of their license. I used to see it a lot in court, their license would be flagged and if they were seen driving outside of designated times – to and from work, specifically – they would be driving illegally. You could also impound the car – which would probably be the only way to stop this behavior, since the tools to do it would disappear.
I’m also concerned that people don’t drive under the influence because they’ll lose an endorsement, not because drinking and driving is a self-evidently bad idea.
It’s a different facet of the same sort of shitty people, but also, CDL limit is 0.04%, rather than the normal 0.08%, so most CDL drivers won’t even have a single drink and drive, unlike a lot of non-CDL folks, who will have a drink or two and still drive without much concern.
These are also useful tools in curbing this. I think we should use a multi-pronged approach.
Hell, in VA we need to have a separate endorsement for both 2- and 3-wheel vehicles; it’s not unheard of to require testing and licencing for vehicles that handle dramatically differently, and a high power-to-weight-ratio car is one of those.
Big meets tend to kind of suck in general. On one end you’ve got Chargers, Mustangs and Camaro’s lined up, hundreds of them. Then you’ve got the rich guys who are like “I bought a Lambo and brought it here, they let me park it up front where everyone is, come look at it”. The cars I wanna see, like someone who’s put hundreds of hours into a Miata or who is keeping a Talon TSI on the road, are all at the smaller meets. It’s usually a tight knit group you found on FB, 30-50 cars, and they’re well behaved. There is one bigger meet near me that usually brings out some interesting rides and 300-500 cars in total, but they’ve been blessed with a location that isn’t conducive to that type of behavior. Just because of how you have to get in and out, there’s really no room to be dumb. Plus huge police presence.
The local Autopian meetup I went to had a beautiful Gallardo lined up next to an Autozam AZ-1. I was part of a crowd that walked right past the Lambo to swarm the Autozam. We meant no offense to the guy who brought the Gallardo, but how often do you get to see an Autozam in person and also talk to the owner about the experience of owning it?
Interestingly enough, Hot Wheels just released an AZ-1! I was amazed to see it, clearly Mattel has some real enthusiasts working for them.
Mattel is doing some wild stuff, never expected a Toyota Van to get a run with two (!) colorways.
Though my toy AZ-1 is a Matchbox.
The Toyota Van is up to three now. A beige, a blue, and a maroon. I don’t have the blue yet.
Is it blue or silver with a blue stripe? I have a silver one and two beige ones.
My ’71 Fiat 500 will outdraw a new Ferrari, every time. And it took way more skill to drive it to the show.
In high school, I had an old shitbox art car with teeth in the grille, crosshairs on the hood, and a bunch of other stuff that I’d bring to the Wednesday cruise meet which was 99% ’50-60s domestics of narrow focus and people would frequently ignore whatever I was parked next to check out my junker and laugh at what I painted on it or the PA system that made animal noises. Now that I’m thinking of it, I was actually invited in by the gate keepers when they saw me park in the regular lot next door. I think that’s kind of the point of shows, though, seeing something different. Sure, someone might reminisce about an old car they used to have, but if that car’s a ’70 Chevelle and they can be seen on any nice night in good weather, it surely loses that impact even for them.
A few years back at a meet I walked right past a 911 and a Ferrari 458 to ogle a 1985 Datsun 720 pickup. When I realized what I’d done, I immediately decided to start my ’80s/’90s car club and start hosting focused events.
I see one parked in my work garage regularly, and I often stop — or at least pause briefly — to admire it.
Last weekend I attended the Cars and Coffee put on by the Revs Institute here in Naples. They do several a year and it’s always a pretty eclectic bunch of cars… everything from Mercedes 300SL’s and Jag XK120’s to every Porsche from 356 to 718. A fair number of the usual C&C offenders as well. It’s run more like a car show than a traditional C&C with museum volunteers organizing parking on the museum grounds. The first time I went I worried about showing up in my pokey NA Miata but I had a great time. Honestly for me the star of the show was a Renault Dauphine that the owner had installed a rodded VW motor into.
No smoky burnouts on leaving, no bad behavior, surprisingly little car snobbery. I wound up talking upholstery techniques with a guy who’s in the process of restoring a 70’s 911 after he asked me who did mine and I told him I tackled it myself.
I lead a group of Miatas to the Wilmington Cars and Coffee every month. Our group ranges from ~5 cars up to a peak of 19 that rode in together. With usually at least that many showing up later and parking near us. What’s hilarious to me is that this last month two Mustang owners made a post in the Cars and Coffee Facebook page complaining about how many Miatas there were and how boring they are when there well over a hundred Mustangs. Ironically, I also own a Mustang and whenever I drive it I park with the Miatas because I have no interest in talking to 99% of Mustang owners.
I mean, compared with careening backward into a light pole pretty much anything is going to be boring.
That is true. I have personally witnessed several Mustang incidents, including the infamous black Cobra hopping the median and hitting 4 cars head on in Myrtle Beach during Mustang Week.
It really depends on the crowd, I was at one last weekend where it was a lot of Challenger SE V6s with airbrushed murals under their hoods and guys wanting to talk your ear off about how “Chrysler used AMC V8s in the ’70s”, “Chargers are built in Canada but Challengers are made in the USA” and “did you see that new Chevelle they came out with for 2020?”, and then also whining about how unfair it was that they didn’t get any trophies at their last show or how they wish they were giving out trophies at this free car meet.
All unsolicited conversations, all terrible, worst crowd I’ve ever experienced at any car event. Found a bar in walking distance and sat in there until the parking lot cleared enough to leave easily. 3/10, not going back
Also, how can you be a “car guy” for 60+ years and still know so little about the very cars you’re apparently into or own?
Because you believe whatever memes you see posted on FB. Those Chevelle renders have been going around since before the 5th gen Camaro came out lmao.
Oh, remembered another anecdote, according to one very loud person, apparently my engine “was designed by Porsche”, another great tidbit
It’s interesting how the tons of cheap power in the wrong hands problem has now hit the car world. It’s been a thing with motorcycles since I dunno, the late 80s?
Your average supersport is as quick as a exotic sportscar, but you can pick one up used (“been down once!”) for under 10 grand.
20 years ago, a friend put it this way – “if they were cars, they’d be illegal b/c of the possibility of huge amounts of harm to others; but since they’re bikes, it’s usually only the rider who suffers in a crash.”
Looks like we’re now at the point where 1 ton + vehicles have this dynamic as well.
There’s always been accessible power but things have increased exponentially in the last 10-20 years. For context, the Ford GT and Lamborghini Murciélago had 550 and 580 horsepower. Naturally they were considered a huge deal in the 2000s and are now as well. In 2023 cars like a Hellcat, ZL1, GT500, etc. put that to shame and you can find examples in the 50s/60s if you’re patient.
For additional affordable fun context a MK5 GTI had 197 horsepower and a first gen S197 Mustang GT had an even 300 horsepower. Affordable fun cars have, in fact, become way, way more powerful. And with the proliferation of modern automatics (like the 10 speed in the Camaro/Mustang and the ZF8 in Chargers/Challengers) putting every single one of those horses down at once is a simple as mashing the big pedal on the right.
Like I said in my comment below, I do think a lot of these cars are overpowered for how accessible they are, and the fact that someone with a 450 credit score can drive out of a Dodge dealership with a Hellcat on a 10 year loan is part of the issue as well.
I was inspired by your comment below for sure!
In the past, you had to be fairly well-off to own a car with the kind of power that nearly anyone can acquire today. Well-off people often (but not always of course) tended to have values beyond impressing people with massive burnouts so there was a built-in limiter to the bad behavior. But now, more small-d democratic access to that power means perhaps more problems.
And I think a lot of people have been lulled to sleep by how docile most modern cars are when doing normal things; they have no idea how violent a provoked oversteer spin can be.
Another element is that older people grew up without traction control. We learned quite early about how easily the rearend can step out on cold or damp pavement. Even my old VW bus could get squirrelly sometimes —not to mention pickups.
I think one of the things the youngins (and I’m 33 so I’m sort of on the edge of being one of them) don’t get is that sudden inputs in a powerful car can be catastrophic…especially if it’s rear wheel drive. If you turn the wheel as far and fast as it’ll go while mashing the throttle you’re going to have a bad time.
The metaphor one of the instructors at the track I go to shared that’s always stuck with me is to imagine there’s a string between your foot and the bottom of the wheel that only has a little slack. If you do enough to break it, you’re in trouble.
I’ve heard that one too – also to imagine there’s an egg like thing between your foot and the pedals that can withstand pressure if you’re smooth; if you mash it fast, it’ll break.
Motorcycles magnify this x100 – a sharp twist on the throttle can easily buck you off the back if you’re not paying attention. There’s a ton of hilarious squid vids on Youtube where guys do this in the dealership parking lot with their brand new race replicas.
Kind of like Silly Putty!
Oh that’s even better. The egg analogy always seemed a little weird b/c it’s, you know, a hugely breakable thing. But (at least for those old enough) Silly Putty is perfect. Even comes (came?) in an egg…
After seeing a lot of bad behavior from the local exotic owners, I will suggest that well off people 100% do NOT have values beyond impressing people with massive burnouts.
Why would well off people care about impressing the kind of people who are impressed by massive burnouts?
I have no insight into the minds of the ultra rich but they definitely do it.
100% agree.
I know a guy with 3 Ferraris. One is worth 300K.
And he is incapable of driving them without being a bigger douche than the idiots we are discussing.
I keep waiting to see him on the news for killing someone by doing 110mph in a 30mph zone.
“the fact that someone with a 450 credit score can drive out of a Dodge dealership with a Hellcat on a 10 year loan is part of the issue as well.”
So what happens when that person crashes the car a few months into that loan? I imagine insurance on those is bloody expensive so it makes sense they’d try to save a few bucks and get the cheapest policy (if any at all). Now they’re waaaay underwater on the loan and maybe have only an undrivable twisted metal sculpture to show for it. How do they get out of that hole?
Do they fix the thing just enough to get it on the road and endure living with that constant reminder of their stupidity? Do they claim it was stolen (despite clickbait videos showing them wrecking the car)? Do they just default on the loan and let the lender repo the wreck? If so how do they get to work? Especially with an even worse credit score and insurance rating than before?
Is how people end up paying $30k for a 15 yo clapped out BHPH lot Versa? If so maybe there is some justice after all.
Do we need to expand the definition of Squid to include cagers?
I read years back that the real-world death rates for convertible versions of performance cars are way lower than coupe counterparts. Nobody can say exactly why, but the best explanation is that exposed to the elements, you really get a sense of just how fast you’re going compared to a modern, sound deadened coupe all closed up.
Bikes of course are a mostly self-selecting thing, so that line of reasoning applies less to them, but for cars, it does seem to make sense. These days, I rarely see people with even their windows down.
Interesting point. It does seem to be worse these days with the sheer amount of power on offer.
This just kind of sucks across the board. Well organized and professionally run car meets are super fun. They’re a great way to talk to other enthusiasts, increase your knowledge, enjoy some outdoor time, and you can even bring the family along. My favorite part of the local Cars and Coffee I attend every now and then is seeing all the kids running around. There’s a good chance a bunch of them will be rolling into the meetup themselves in 20 years.
Basically, they’re a great way to grow enthusiasm. However, sometimes we can’t have nice things. All it takes is one dingbat to ruin it for everyone else. They had to cancel the one I attend for a few months because people were engaging in similar tomfoolery and the locals complained. Fortunately no one got hurt, it was just some Karens being Karens…but at the same time I know where they’re coming from.
Powerful cars are dangerous…and while I personally like pony cars because of their everyman performance per dollar ratio, I think there’s an argument to be made that they’re a little too accessible. The fact that Dodge, Ford, and Chevy will finance anyone with a pulse and happily put you in something with a huge V8 and just about nothing else in the 30s has always kind of stressed me out. If you fuck up in a base Mustang GT, LT1 Camaro, etc. there’s not really anything that’s going to help you.
At the end of the day 450+ horsepower is just way, way, way more than the average person can handle. Whenever people come to me for advice on what their first “fun” car should be I usually recommend things like the SI, WRX, Toyobaru, etc. I think it’s best to start in the low to mid 200s horsepower wise and work your way up from there. Hell, my Kona N puts down about 280 to the wheels and I’ve gotten myself into trouble with it at times.
That being said this is just going to make the antisocial drivers angry and I think it’ll make the problem worse. If they think this is bad wait until they do a pony car takeover instead. I can’t imagine that the sorts of people doing donuts in a public intersection are going to look at this situation and re examine their behavior…I think they’re going to say FUCK YOU THEY’RE OPPRESSING US WE NEED TO BE LOUDER FASTER AND MORE DANGEROUS!
I think the best solution would be to take action against specific drivers. Whether it’s banning them, turning over footage of them breaking the law, or whatever…I don’t think that it’s as simple as “pony cars BAD”. It’s a chicken and egg situation. If there weren’t pony cars these idiots would find other ways to misbehave.
And finally, social media is a HUGE part of this problem as well. The people that pull this shit are narcissistic clout goblins. They WANT attention. They want to be hated, since there’s no such thing as bad press. When a video of Bubba’s Challenger doing donuts and narrowly missing bystanders gets a bunch of views on Instagram or whatever that’s a successful day for him. I think it’s way better to ignore these people than film them/give them the attention they so desperately crave. Eventually they’ll have to move on to something else.
I agree ideally it would make most sense to identify those committing infractions, and banning them from the event. But yeah, the people doing these things aren’t known for accepting punishment, reflecting on it, and modifying their behavior… to put it kindly. They’re more likely to channel their inner toddler and wage war on the event.
Unfortunately, when things like this get too big, they typically need to get dismantled and built back up again. Want to keep the dicks away? Make the events smaller. Chad isn’t going to be as interested in doing burnouts for the ‘gram if there’s only 80 people in attendance.
P.S. – I’d add that once your event has multiple attendees pulling shit like this afterward, your event has probably jumped the proverbial shark. Would be posting that sweet gif if I could.
I agree with the idea that not everyone is capable of handling a car with a huge amount of horsepower, however I don’t know if that correlates with a person’s credit score. There are plenty of rich kids whose parents have great credit scores who aren’t capable of handling a 500 hp car. I have read enough of your posts to know you don’t really think that the problem is that the poors now have access to cars that used to be only for the 1 percent.
The rampage in NYC with that Gemballa Mirage GT back in 2020 comes to mind as a good example of a high credit score not equating to driving skills.
You’re correct, I definitely don’t. And I think credit scores are deeply flawed…but in this situation I used it to illustrate the fact that pretty much anyone can walk out with one of these cars if they really want to/are willing to throw financial caution to the wind.
Rich parents putting their kids in this shit is dangerous too. Hell, there was a local video that went viral this year of a teenager losing control of an M3 their dad bought them and nearly killing a cop who had pulled someone over. Naturally it happened in a very wealthy part of Northern VA.
The overarching theme I think we’re all getting at here is that there should be more barriers to accessing this level of power.
“I think they’re going to say FUCK YOU THEY’RE OPPRESSING US WE NEED TO BE LOUDER FASTER AND MORE DANGEROUS!”
And that kids is how you end up in jail or prison. Or dead.
A damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation unfortunately.
Did they accidentally swap Challenger with Charger? That seemed odd to me as well.
Rows of the SAME car at an event bum me out. I wish it was as easy as “Only Interesting Cars”, but I guess that’s a bit vague, huh?
I would volunteer to man the gate and serve as the admission czar, but admittedly I haven’t been to a car get-together in a couple years due to a shortage of “interesting.”
One way around this is to require preregistration and limit the number of each model you accept. First 3 cars of each generation/model get accepted.
That’s a different kind of car show, though. Cars and Coffee is supposed to be super informal and impromptu.
Instead of banning models, just ban horsepower. Make a maximum of, say, 149, and you probably won’t have too many problems. Plus, it’s a great way to attract malaise-era cars.
I dunno, man. I can do a wicked burnout in my Triumph. And it only makes 90hp.
You get one burnout per driveline. Use it wisely.
As a former Triumph (TR-3) owner myself I doubt anyone would be impressed by a Triumph doing a burnout. Its the automotive equivalent of a fiercely barking chihuahua.
I think the best you could hope for is someone thinking “Awww, how cute”. The reaction you can expect from most others would be a giggle or an eyeroll.
On the contrary. People are quite impressed that a piece of crap like that can make so much noise and smoke. And that it still works afterwards. 🙂
Well my burnout experiences are based on my HS years during the ’80s so perhaps things have changed. Back then to have any cachet at all the minimum cylinder count was 8 and you’d better have the badges to show it. If your ride had 6 cylinders it was essentially a beige non-entity and if it had 4 you were either a girl, a poor or a flaming homosexual.
Power to weight ratio is way, way more significant than horsepower (and how would you even determine that for something that’s been modified anyway, ask everyone to bring a printout of a recent dyno run with them?). Put 149hp in, say, an old MG Midget and you’ve got a real pocket rocket.
I was just thinking how it turns out I was lucky to have come of age at a time when everyone’s first RWD car was a Chevette.
Honestly I don’t want a vehicle with over 250 HP and in general I want as little HP as I need. I’d much rather have a smaller vehicle I can put all the power down in in slippery conditions that is lighter and more fuel efficient than something massive with lots of horsepower that I can’t use that burns too much fuel and weighs too damn much.
That being said I want to be able to do the speed limit consistently. My general philosophy when it comes to automobiles is that they should be able to handle anything that the roads would throw at it in normal conditions without failure. Potholes, speedbumps, snow, ice, speed limits, etc. If I have to change my driving style and be worried every time I drive in order to drive X automobile I’d rather walk.
Then you cannot have an LM002! You’ll have to settle for a Cheetah, with 180hp. 🙂
That’s the Irony of my name, the LM002 ended up being the scariest POS I’ve ever driven and HP had nothing to do with it, and my tastes evolved since I came up with the username back when I was 14 or so. Now I’ve basically done a 180.
I guess my sarcasm was a bit too subtle.
This site is run by people who drive things like Changlis, Nissan Paos, and Jeeps held together with silly string. And we the users are attracted to such nonsense. You think a 149hp limit is a *bad* idea? Only 3 of the cars I’ve owned in my lifetime would be excluded. That would be a show for *us*.
We never have these problems at the ’80s/’90s events I host. They have a reputation for being very chill. I tell people the main reasons for this are:
1) Most of the cars don’t have enough power to really make any trouble
2) Parts can be hard to get, no one wants to break anything.
I want to take my son’s newly restored ’90 190e to an event like this. I wonder if there is one in Charlotte NC?
I don’t know of one in Charlotte, although as the TriangleRAD group has grown, I’ve been considering trying to start chapters in Charlotte and Wilmington. I’d need someone local to be the point person, though.