Dbags, Cars, & Coffee In Orange County

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Remember Cars & Coffee in Orange County? Hopefully you do and got a chance to see it before it disappeared, because the reincarnation of the famed car meet-up is pretty lame. The organizers have decided that only certain cars are eligible. In the past, it was a self selection process. If you thought your car was cool enough, it was allowed – provided there was room. Now the event is in a new location but the organizers have published a list of eligible cars – see below. Everything else goes into the spectator parking lot, now referred to as the “Reject Lot.”

I can understand if the list was more of a guideline to let people know what types of cars will generally be accepted, but this past Saturday a bunch of cool cars showed up and were denied entrance. Cars like a Vector WX3 for example. Jonny Lieberman, Motortrend Editory) showed up with two brand new models from BMW and Mercedes and was denied entry. Sure the X6M isn’t that special, but I’ve never seen the weirdo Mercedes AMG GLE63 coupe thing. There were other cool cars in the Reject Lot as well, but mostly because the main Cars & Coffee lot was full of cars like the 911, an Audi R8, and other of sort of regular cars.

If you live in LA, you know that every single, usually divorced, male in Socal now owns a 911. So now every one of them is eligible for the main show at Cars & Coffee, but cars like Vector are not. You can also park your Bentley in the main lot. Are they special? Not really in my opinion. But apparently they are to the guys in charge. Any Rolls Royce is eligible as well and so is every 2 door Jaguar ever made. But a hand built BMW E28 M5? Nope. A BMW M1? Nope. An E30 M3? Not that either. The only BMW allowed after 1975 is the Z8.

BMW Z8

Also not allowed is a Lancia Stratos, any street legal Group B rally car like the Audi Sport Quattro, or a Lancia Delta Integrale. But you can bring your Corvette. All of them, every single model. You can bring your Saleen but only if it has 2 doors. Anything else they built goes to the Reject Lot.

No VW’s are allowed at all. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done to your VW, or how rare of a model it is, you can’t bring it in. I’m sure they would make an exception for Tanner Foust’s VW Beetle rallycross car, but technically its not allowed. grc washington dc foust
Lotus is not allowed either. Not even the new 311 which looks awesome:

Lotus 3 Eleven 23_06_15 8g
There are still few cool cars on the list, but generally it looks like the entry list to a Bull Run Rally. If your car is fancy you can bring it. If its more than 40 years old, you can bring it. But if its cool and random you can’t. Welcome to the new Dbags, Cars, & Coffee.

Here’s the complete list of allowed cars:

Anything older than 1975

  • Acura – NSX only
  • Ariel Atom
  • Aston Martin
  • Audi – R8 only
  • Bentley
  • BMW – Z8
  • Bugatti
  • Callaway
  • Chevrolet – Corvette and limited product ZL1 and Z28 Camaro only
  • Concept Cars – As prearranged with manufacturers
  • Dodge – Viper and limited production SRT8 Challenger only
  • DE Tomaso
  • Ferrari
  • Ford – Ford GT and limited production SVT Boss + Shelby Mustangs only
  • Jaguar – 2 doors only
  • Koenigsegg
  • Lamborghini
  • Lexus – LFA only
  • Maserati – 2 doors only
  • McLaren
  • Mercedes Benz – 2 seat cars only
  • Morgan
  • Nissan – GTR only
  • Noble
  • Pagani
  • Porsche – 2 doors only
  • Replicas/special construction cars – on a case by case
  • Rolls Royce
  • Ruf
  • Saleen – 2 doors only
  • Spyker
  • Shelby

What else is missing from this list?

3 COMMENTS

  1. I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this way about events like that. When events start small to bring car enthusiasts together and then turns out to get big, people tend to go with the flow and before you know it, the original intention gets lost in translation.

    The fact that there are “only accepted” cars and a “reject lot” is pretty ridiculous. Owning a car like a 911 doesn’t make you any better than the guy with an old Subaru Justy, just as owning a Ferrari doesn’t make you better than someone with an old Fiat. Sure, it’s fun to see exotics, and it’s fun to see supercars, but people want to show up and show off their project, talk about car things, show their buddies their progress on their build, AND see exotics, special cars, etc. But cars that people enjoy aren’t limited to ultra rare stuff.

    I’m with you on the 911 stuff too. I miss my 911 and I loved my 911. However, I never really understood a German friend of mine saying they were “mainstream” until I drove it enough every day for the novelty to wear off. I miss my 914 more.

    What a very short list of cars to be accepted. 🙁 I prefer car events where everyone tries to get together regardless of brand or model, and just wants to talk cars.

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