As a gearhead, I enjoy the occasional car show. A summer Saturday, the evening sky ablaze in shades of gold and vermilion, cars new and old lined up, something for everyone under the palm trees as the DJ at McDonalds spins another golden oldie over the PA. Yes, the car show is where dreams are born, but it’s also a breeding ground for nightmares. The way I see it, there’s 4 types of (import) car show attendees.

The “Professional” (Import) Car Show
First, a little background. Such shows really exist. Fortunes have been made (and squandered) at big ticket, tour-the-country car shows like Hot Impotent Knights, Import Jerkoff, NO-PEE something, and my own creation, Radical Import Car Event. I can’t get into these. I’ve never attended. Even at Pavilions, where I’m absolutely welcome, I park my nearly stock, one of likely less than 1500 left on the continent GVR4 elsewhere while I wander up and down the rows in search of real gearheads maybe two or three times a year.

The 4 Types of (Import) Car Show Attendees

Type A
The A-listers. Top of the line, no expense spared, works of automotive art. Usually styled to suggest the race/motorsport lifestyle, many of these vehicles never see action faster than the trip up and down the trailer ramps in the parking lot. Type A car show entrants are often successful automotive accessory shop owners looking for an easy way to write of $30,000 or so to offset business profits. From time to time, a Type A may be a spoiled little rich kid whose mommy and daddy can’t be bothered. Either way, enormous amounts of cash and craftsmanship go into turning a perfectly functional vehicle into something Pollock would laugh at.

Type A represents the pinnacle of automotive style and performance. Eventually, the Type A crowd will simply compete by filling ever larger plexiglass speaker boxes with cash and LED lighting, as this is more about showing off how much money you can put into a common commuter car than anything else.

Type B
The biggest difference between the A-listers and the B-squad is that the B-squad are regular Joes with real day jobs, families, and a reasonable financial limit to their show car aspirations. These guys are all about the attention to detail, the comprehensive build, doing it right the first time, and generally showing the world just how righteous the everyman’s car can be. Since they can’t write off 30 grand a year in “advertising” with their hobby, these guys usually keep the same car for a number of years. And those cars usually get nicer as time passes.

Type B represents the slightly confused, yet entirely legitimate enthusiast. He loves his car for the way it actually performs, but he also wants to show others that logical realism is sexy too. Eventually, Type Bs grow tired of the scene and simply walk away. Industry experts report 2 out of 3 of these guys wise up and buy the M3, the 3rd guy buys a Porsche, often a Boxster.

Type C
These aren’t actually car show contestants. They just go to SEE what’s going on. (Clever, huh?) Maybe they park their car among the others, but only if it’s an impromptu get-together. They meet up with friends, wander around, and check out the “show cars.” Type Cs find comfort in knowing they haven’t spent $50,000 building “race cars” that aren’t or otherwise shoddily clapped together a rolling piece of shit that will be posted all over the internet on Monday.

Type C are just regular gearheads into cars who check out the car show only because, well, that’s where all the cars are at the moment, so why not? Eventually (read: about an hour later), Type Cs get bored and decide to hit up Outback for steak dinners. Mmmm…  Steak dinner.

Type D
The D is for damn. As in…

Damn. Craftsmanship? Check. Attention to detail? Check. Pointless gigantic wing? Check. $20,000 invested into forgotten $500 Chevy turd? Check. Modicum of taste? Don’t think so. If GM offered layaway on ricers at Sears, I’m sure this is what they would look like.

Damn. Amber corner marker and repeater suggests a desire for elusive JDM hawtness. Logic maintains paying ten times the going rate for what are essentially stock car parts simply because they came that way in Japan, is stupid. Instead, cut the rubber band under the hood of your $1500 DX Civic, install a $2500 VTEC mill, bolt up a $1500 turbocharger, run out of summer job money, intercool that bitch with $5 in used sprinkler piping and spray paint.

Damn. I remember when I worked for an online company that sold performance parts. We sold real performance parts, but our bread and butter was body kit sales. We made 65% margin on the super-popular-with-this-crowd $250 body kits. These idiots would pay $300 in freight charges for $100 worth of fiberglass bullshit, then call back every day (after school), freaking out because they had a car show coming up. This is exactly what I expected those choads to be “showing.”

An aside: In their defense, many of these callers would first ask for a turbo kit for their car. Assuming they weren’t driving a ’76 Mercedes or an ’89 Lumina 4-cylinder, as soon as they heard the turbosystem cost more than $200, they almost always asked about body kits; many specifying the cheapest available. Who cares what it looks like, right?

Damn. Just, damn.

Type Ds can’t be blamed for their automotive failures. Perhaps their mothers drank and smoked and did H while pregnant, leading to their inability to figure out such large projects. Perhaps their beady, close-set eyes, prevent them from appropriately gauging the quality of their work.

Maybe their flat-brimmed hats are too tightly fitted to their smaller heads, cutting off critical circulation.Maybe someone ought to introduce them to LeMons or ChumpCar or even demolition derby, where wood screws and rattle cans equal win.

Then again, maybe we should just thank them for making it that much easier for the rest of our cars to look like a million bucks – even the ten footers.

Like I said, I just can’t get into the car show scene. One end of the spectrum is showing off cars bereft of any real performance, the other end is so utterly clueless, it begs the question why the local humane society doesn’t accept human children. If you’ve not had enough train wreck today, consider checking out full coverage of all the epic fail at the original thread on r3vlimited.com (hat tip: GalantVR4.org).

Now, before I close this random editorial finger-pointing…
Type D Import Car Show Attendee is absolutely, unequivocally, to the nth degree NOT to be confused with the timeless brilliance that was the Jaguar D Type. I hope the following image reminds of you all that was and still is right in the automotive world.

An extra dose of awesome because I feel guilty exposing you to such baseless ignorance with this post.

In the glovebox:

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