The Rise and Fall of Car Meets

Hello everyone! How are we all doing today? Hope you’re having a good weekend whatever you are up to! Today’s post we are talking about car meets and just how they’ve changed and how the scene seems to be heading into a different direction.

So let’s start at the beginning, well maybe not the beginning, but a couple of years ago car meets were at the peak. If you wanted to make friends or just be around like minded individuals then a car meet is what you’d head out to. They had huge attendances and there were local groups organising weekly meets so there was always something going on. With the peak of my Cupra I was heading out to these meets all summer and it was a blast. Now this wasn’t the start of car meets by any means but it was the start for me and in a short time I’ve seen a big change and I’m sure plenty agree with me.

So what changed? For me it was the behaviour of people that attended. Now don’t get me wrong, the car meets I look back with a particular fondness, there was the cars revving and a few burnouts here and there. But other than that everyone stayed within the unpainted lines and stuck to not causing too much chaos. Then along came Covid and lockdown and a lot of things got tucked away until we could come out and play again. What happened after that was where things started to get out of hand in my eyes. People seemed to push their luck, one person did 60mph so another went and topped it by doing 70. So on and so on. It’s a slippery slope and I think it’s more prominent in the US where you see social media posts about takeovers and how split the car community is on them. A lot of people bash them but then you see the attendance that they get and you realise a lot of people enjoy that brash and chaotic nature of a takeover. Even here in the UK we seem to be following that pattern and shutting down roads for race purposes and inevitably the police show up to shut it down. It wasn’t too long ago that happened locally to me in Manchester.

These changes in behaviour or whatever you want to pin it down on, you can’t say that nothing has changed. What was once a thriving culture, it seems to be moving away from that and becoming more of a negative thing. Now, what’s the positives in all of this? Well different types of events are starting to take their place. Things like drive outs, track days and car shows. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against car meets in anyway, I still head out to them and enjoy my time, it’s just annoying that a few individuals tend to ruin it for everyone else. So these other legitimate car shows and track days are becoming more popular for the people that just want a way to enjoy their car the way they want to. Whether that’s thrashing it around a track or showing off the details of their build with others.

So with the current state of the car scene and the community that surrounds it, I think it’s a point in time where car meets may change forever. At least here in the UK anyway. If you’re one of those people that enjoys the chaos of a takeover or less static meet then maybe this post isn’t for you. But if you enjoy a static meet where you get to show off your car and see what other cars have come down then you probably agree with me. Hopefully car meets don’t see an inevitable death and hopefully they make a comeback in a sensible way that isn’t going to be seen as a negative. So until the future where we know how things turned out, we will just have to wait it out and see what happens.

Until then though, enjoy the ride!

E.