This past Saturday I headed down to a car meet in Worcester, MA held by the OEM Performance car club. It was held in memory of Alexis Correa, Jr, who was tragically killed by a wrong-way drunk driver in 2013. Proceeds from the meet were donated to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
I figured there would be good FR-S/BRZ representation, and since motorcycles were invited too, I decided to bring my 1998 Honda Pacific Coast 800 (far left).
It looked a bit out of place among the sport bikes, but that was OK – they parked me among them anyway.
This was a bit different from other car meets I’ve been to. Older Japanese cars were by far the most common represented. Of course there were AE86s and an AW11 MR2 in attendance, but there were also many others. In fact, I haven’t seen this many 1980s Toyotas at the same time since I was growing up in the 1980s.
I was also among one of the few “gringos” present among a predominantly Hispanic demographic. It didn’t matter – we were all there for the same reason: cars (and bikes). And there were some quite impressive builds here. This old Corolla wagon, “La Repugnante,” has a wheelie bar in the back and a giant turbo under the hood.
AE86s are cool. AE86s with velocity stacks on a 20 valve 4AGE motor are awesome. And look at those smooth bends in the header.
I used to have a Mazda B2200 pickup just like this one. Well, not just like it – as a courier company cast-off that I got for $200, mine was significantly uglier than this one.
Not all cars at the show were old. This Nissan GT-R drove all the way up from Florida. The engine looked much more familiar to me after seeing one getting built at NYIAS.
Here in the snow belt, we don’t see too many early Mazda RX-7s anymore thanks to rust. But these two are remarkably well preserved.
The same goes for this Toyota Celica.
This old Corolla looks stock on the outside, but packs a serious wallop under the hood.
Others prefer to remain more “old school.”
It was quite a bit different than the shows I’m used to, but it was great to see so many of the cars of my youth preserved and modified, for go as well as show.
