Caffeine and Octane Atlanta, July 2014

When I think of a car show, I usually have a pretty clear image in my head. I see dozens of white-haired men and their wives sitting in folding chairs behind meticulously restored American luxo-barges and muscle cars. There are usually signs that read "Look, but please don't touch!" Some tired old Beach Boys song belts through the speakers of an antiquated p.a. system, conversations involving "matching numbers," "frame-off restoration," and "back in the day" drone on, and when the sun goes down, everyone packs up their chairs and trophies, and the cars return to their garage shrines to sit underneath a cover until the next show.

Don't get me wrong, I have immense respect for the work that goes into restoring an old car to showroom condition, but that kind of stuff only applies to a small portion of the car enthusiast community.

This is what makes Caffeine and Octane so great. This grassroots effort --inspired by the wildly popular Cars and Coffee in Irvine, California-- is a rebellious breakaway from the traditional classic car show.

There's no admission fee. There's no way to register your car for the show. You have just as much chance of parking your bone-stock Chevrolet S10 in the show area as Rick Babyboomer has in his numbers-matching Hemi Cuda. First to arrive? Well, then you get first pick of a parking space. It's that simple.

In one row, you'll see everything from that numbers-matching Cuda, to a Lamborghini Diablo, to a 1998 Acura Integra with clearcoat failure. You can see how this quickly becomes an event where anyone who attends can find something they like.

With a diversity in cars comes a diversity in crowd members. Sure, the majority is comprised of fathers and sons --my father and I included-- but there are also entire families who get up at the crack of dawn to make the trek to Caffeine and Octane. Pint-sized photographers and not-so-pint-sized photograpers zig-zag through crowds of reminiscers, couples, dogs, salespeople, police officers, and anyone and everyone in between.

The collection of special cars that congregates here on the first Sunday of every month does something special. It fosters relationships between strangers, friends, and families. Everyone is out to have a good time and share their enthusiasm for cars.

Caffeine and Octane, along with shows like it popping up across the country, are reinventing the way we all think about car shows. The formal, ritualized, and frankly outdated model of the car show that many of us grew up with is changing, and I couldn't be more thankful for that.