SoCal Vintage BMW meet 2018: November 3.

stphers

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You Know, all you guys really piss me off ( joke ) You are so lucky to have so many cars show up for a show. Last year at our German car show, had about 4 2002 and one coupe ( Mike always shows up, good on him ) at the BMW car club show after talking about to everyone that I knew, we had 8. count em , 8 2002's show up ( most ever ) and just a couple of coupes. One year we had 4 coupes but I ( and my kids ) brought 3 of them ( customer's cars with their permission of course ) Man, you guys are lucky I know that there are more cars here but hard to get them to come out. Oh well, there is always next year. One day, I would love to drive down there and join the show ( first got to finish one of my many projects )

All the best for the holidays to everyone

Thanks, Rick
 

leonine99

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Rick

Happy holidays to you as well. We are very lucky that SoCal has a huge car culture, and that a nice slice of it has an interest in vintage Euro cars. I think the first year in 2008 we had a turnout of about 100 cars, which was a nice start. I think the thing we did, and still try to do, is never assume everyone knows about us. I'm always surprised that every year there are a couple of dozen first time attendees. I think part of that is new money coming into the community, and fans of our special cars buying fully restored examples and wanting to join in, which is fine with us - we never judged anyone on how unique or common their vintage car was. So we try to keep our name across the screen as much as we can, we do open houses throughout the year at some of our Sponsors' shops, which is a way to bring a very specific target market to our supporters and create a get together a few times a year leading up to the big meet. and all along we keep ringing the bell on the Meet in November. The word of mouth is always helpful and we couldn't do it without the great help of volunteers. HBChris brought his crew including OCCoupe and a couple of others (sorry don't have everyone's screen name memorized) and with their great help we were able to get everyone parked in the fastest time ever. Its a real trick getting 400 cars parked in an hour but they did it. They have a lot of show experience and we're grateful for the expert help. So long story longer, just keep at it and always market your meet every chance you get, you'll be surprised how many don't know about you.

The downside is that we have such a busy meet, that John and I have a lot of trouble getting away from the main booth to come and see all you guys, which really is a shame, since one of the big reasons we do this is to see people we only get to see once or twice a year. I always feel crappy that I can only talk for a few minutes and then have to run, but such is the beast. But getting a meet to a size like this was because of a great community, and I give the credit to the west coast BMW community ( and we owe a lot to the guys in NoCal and the GG chapter). And we really try to give back where we can, we support Bay Area 02 and sponsor the Vintage Class Trophy at Legends, mainly to be good vintage BMW community citizens. But all this came after years, and we do it as a labor of love....we sure as hell don't make any money at it! Anyway, I think this is a long way of saying thank you to the vintage BMW community as a whole.
Thanks for letting me ramble! Jeff
 
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