Project Petrolhead

The weather’s naff, isn’t it? We’re quickly approaching the end of February, and it still feels like the UK is elbow-deep in winter, with temperatures hovering around the single-digit mark on the mercury and “more torrential than usual” torrential downpour has led to flooded roads which means that nobody wants to venture out in their nice cars.

I miss car shows. I miss paying £28 pounds for a bottle of water as priceless metal thunders up the driveway of Goodwood house. I miss being jostled like a ship at sea by a crowd of people all taking photos of the same new Ferrari “for the ‘Gram”. I miss sitting in the stands at Silverstone in utter silence just waiting to see if the grid order has changed. “But wait” you say “Car shows are still happening! I’ve been watching YouTube videos of slammed Honda Civics torque-steering out of Asda car parks for weeks now!” No, my friend, that’s no car show, that’s a car meet.

Car meets are… a bit of a grey area, usually consisting of a group of young people in modified hatchbacks congregating in public areas like car parks or industrial estates. On the one hand, I’m all for people in the car community expressing themselves and having fun. Seeing some of the interesting builds and the individual style of each car and driver. On the other hand, I’d rather eat one of my shoes than attend some of them. If you’ve bought a Golf R, wrapped it to look like a Minion and applied a pop-and-bang map, great! Keep it to yourself though, not everyone in a 3-mile radius needs to hear it.

Why are car meets like this though? Well, I suppose it’s down to the demographic. Owners of classic cars or supercars tend to be… how to put this… ancient and decrepit. Alright, maybe not, but they do tend to be older and how many 50-year-old middle managers do you think want to take their brand-new AMG GT or immaculately restored Jag XJ-S to a McDonald’s car park at 3AM? And then, there’s the fallout. In recent times, a lot of the regularly occurring car meets have become quite unruly and, as such, have started to draw a police presence. That means that even the tiniest amount of spirited driving could result in major consequences, regardless of whether you’re in a Triumph Stag or a Toyota Starlet.

Maybe I’m just old. Admittedly, I’ve never really been in touch with the youth of Britain, even when I WAS a youth of Britain, so this might all just sound like an old man yelling at the kids on his lawn. I suppose I’m just doomed to sit staring out of the window like a forlorn old basset hound until the weather improves and the car shows start again in earnest. But as absence makes the heart grow fonder, I start more and more to look forward to getting back out into the car community again. As the Beatles would put it:

Here comes the sun… do do do do.