Cars and Coffee - Cork February 2017

What a day! What a lovely day!

...except for the weather, the weather was utter "**bleep**". But car enthusiasts in Cork didn't seem to mind. They got the cars out, put on a big smile and showed up in great numbers.

There were American Muscle Cars from the "Great American Steel Car Club", the JDM crowd, European sports cars and even small electric toasters, oh I mean cars!, electric cars. This was a unique sight, a bunch of electric blenders, sorry, I mean cars, ELECTRIC CARS, and not the fast ones such as BMW i8 or Tesla, but the small economical ones, attending a car meet. It was astonishing seeing a "big ol' Mopar" just meters away from a Nissan Leaf, at a car event and not parked next to each other at the petrol station where the environmentalist just stopped to get a coffee, not fuel. Nobody seemed to mind though, we all know how welcoming the people of Cork are, and car enthusiasts here are no different.

We mentioned the diversity of cars in our last article, but we didn't mention the quality and this is something worth doing when you see a car made in the late 70s looking better than most of the "171" cars. This is proof that, in spite all the hardships of owning a cool car, of maintaining it to high standards, the spirit is still there. The car enthusiast isn't gone but just making room for newer generations that come with new trends, new ways of building up their cars, with new technologies while having the same goal, to keep their beloved machines running and looking sweet. Having a bunch of electric cars at a Cars & Coffee event is further proof to that. The future is coming fast and the electric car might just become a regular of car meets. However, there will always be room for the internal combustion engine. It has too much history, it had put too many smiles on too many faces to just fade away. When the last drop of fossil fuel will be consumed in an explosion of joy that would put the last smile on a lucky bugger's face, the world won't go into mourning, there will not be a complete shutdown of all internal combustion engines, but merely a refill with some sort of synthetic fuel invented by some car nut scientist.

Hats off to all who attended and don't worry, summer will be here soon enough!

It's January 2017. It's winter. The days are short, wet and cold. Lots of cars are still hybernating this time of year. Enthusiasts keep them indoors, away from all the moisture in the air.

But some just want to drive them, some took their cars out just so they can meet up with other people that share the same passion.

This was the first Cars&Coffe in Cork this year. And it the whole year will look like the way it started, this is going to be one of the best. In spite of the low temperatures, there were a variety of cars out that day, anything from old-school American muscle to European and Japanese fast cars. Even The Gards joined in (or so we'd like to think) with one of their cruisers. It nice to see car people just getting along, it didn't matter what you drove there, what mattered in that you WERE there.

It's was a true sight, all that variety of cars and people, all together with just one goal: spend a few hours in the company of other with similar views but having the same passion. And maybe the best sight, was a senior citizen, leaning towards the engine bay of an old, but restored to high standards, VW Golf, talking to a teenager about the car. This is what a "car enthusiasts community" should be all about! Sharing the knowledge and passing it on to the next generations.

BIG thumbs up for all that showed up that day!