September 1, 2019 was Southern California's largest European car gathering - BIG EURO. Since Occupy Big Bear (another large west coast euro event) was canceled this year, I decided to make the trip to San Diego's SDCCU stadium for Big Euro's SoCal event. My girlfriend also joined me, and it was both of our first time going. The drive was about 2 hours from Los Angeles, and we hit the road real early to avoid the Labor Day traffic.
The show is generally a European make car show, but is sponsored by Volkswagen, KW Suspension, HRE Wheels, and Toyo Tires. As you probably would guess after hearing that, yes-- there were tons of Volkswagens! It was a bright, sunny day and the temperature stayed in the mid 90's throughout the afternoon. It is also worth mentioning that this was a free event to attend!
The show started at 11am and we got there about 15 minutes before that. It was very well organized and thankfully there was no crazy traffic jam to get in. There was a wide variety of European cars to see, from aircooled VWs/Porsches to modern Audis and BMWs. There was also a good selection of food trucks, which was well done on the event planner's end. The stadium has a massive parking lot which made this huge event look small! It has become such a popular show that you will even see a few Japanese and American modified cars hanging around the parking lot trying to get in on the action. Unfortunately, there was no drag racing held this year as I heard there was in previous years - not a big deal to me, though! My eyes were geared towards the massive parking lot with rows upon rows of lowered European vehicles and being able to put some faces to names for the first time.
In conclusion, the event was well worth the 2 hour drive to see hundreds of cool cars and to meet up with old friends and new. The hardest part of the trip was waking up at 6am to avoid the Labor Day weekend traffic, but if you live in LA or any other high traffic area you get used to making these decisions!
By the way, we made a new podcast! To hear more about the event, check out the link below. I'll try to update this weekly with new episodes.
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