Cars and Coffee…with a Special Guest

Over 26 million dollars worth of cars within an 1/8 square mile? I’m glad they pulled out all the stops for me* when I visited this past weekend!

So, while I was in my hometown this past week for training (sorry if I didn’t have a chance to meet up with you), I ended up attending a very cool event. My brother, Henry, recommended I bring my camera when I headed out east as he wanted to take me to something special on Saturday. Turns out, he was right!

Cars and Coffee is a local meetup of all types of gearheads**. Many drivers/car owners show up to display their rides and meet fellow luxury car owners. It’s similar to a group getting together for a photowalk, but the subjects are vehicles. While I didn’t get to meet many people (too busy clicking away), everyone seemed very nice.

The variety of cars here was astounding. From a Bugatti Veyron (which Volkswagen HAD SENT OVER) to a 1900’s era Stanley Steamer (runs on steam power), basically every major era in cars were represented. There were quite a bit of ‘supercars’ that attended as well. As you might be able to surmise, most of these cars are very valuable. We estimated (roughly) that there was $26 MILLION+ worth of cars in this one lot! Pretty nuts, right?

The breadth of cars within brands was astounding. We saw Ferrari after Ferrari, ranging from the 1970’s to today. However, some of the other brands weren’t as prolific as Ferrari. For instance, we saw only one McLaren that day. Surprisingly, there were only a couple of Laborghinis and more Porsches than I cared to count. We wandered around a group of owners with old, imported Mini Coopers and several Shelby Cobras (which some even had signed dashboards by Shelby himself). Henry (my brother) brought his tricked out early 90’s era Mercedes AMG to the show as part of the Mercedes ‘group’. He loves that car (and with good reason).

If you are an avid reader of my blog, you may remember that I occasionally attend car shows. I think it stems from a underlying desire to be part of a ‘real’ car shoot someday (on a studio with those massive softboxes)***. Photographing certain cars (read: supercars) allows you to basically ‘pay homage’ to the various designers’ visions****. Plus, it’s a boatload of fun!

Want to see more? You can attend one (in the greater DC area at least) every Saturday morning. I recommend getting there bright and early, especially if you have a ride you are showing off (6AM type of early). You can find more details about Katie’s Cars and Coffee here. To see more of my car shots, wander over to my Flickr page.

*not actually true

**mean this in the most endearing way

***Hint Hint, car photographers

****I really want a nice ride someday