While the Eastern and Northern regions of the country start tucking their roadsters, cruisers, and drifters away in garages for the winter, West Coast car enthusiasts throw on some scarves and sweaters and keep the party going well through November and beyond. This month, I took my 1983 Volvo 240 DL to two shows, both of which touted an enormously diverse range of vehicles, people, and stories.
The first show is a regular event that many Bay Area car freaks have come to cherish as a curated but laid-back treasure of a show, with an incredible backdrop. Held once a month right next to the beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, the Pre-Stage Automotive Gathering, run by the ever-creative folks at Breakfast Club Rally and catered by Red Whale Coffee, brings hundreds of people and dozens of cars together for an early morning gathering that feels as welcoming as possible, every single time.
At each Pre-Stage, a themed section makes up the front of the lot; this month’s choice was pre-2000 BMW M cars, which always creates a buzz of fanaticism and Instagram opportunity. E30s and E36s (and a handful of their predecessors) battled for photogenic supremacy and attracted the gazes of wishful-thinking teenagers and wistful old timers alike.
The rest of the lot is open to all, and BCR really does mean all. My Volvo was joined by several other Swedish bricks, Mercedes coupes from the 1950s onwards, more Porsche 911 generations than you can keep a tab on, cute little kei vans, old school American pickups, burly muscle cars, German tuners, Italian stallions, and even a couple track-ready Ford GT40s. All of this was made even sweeter by the gorgeous autumn sunshine, of course.
Then came the rain, and with it, the Motoring Coffee Cold Start event at Marina Middle School in San Francisco. A coffee shop run by the Motoring Club, an automotive enthusiast group here in California, the Motoring Coffee has two locations: one here in the city and one in Los Angeles. The semi-annual Cold Start events are uniquely San Franciscan, though, and take advantage of the massive Marina Middle School lot to welcome a smaller, but more thematically-focused group of cars.
