Not a Cloud in the Sky: Caffeine and Octane at the Beach

This weekend was supposed to be about cars. It certainly wasn't my first pilgrimage to see some steel. Last year I trekked to Hilton Head for the third time and watched a Packard get fished out of a water hazard at the Port Royal Golf Club. The summer before that, I drove all the way from Detroit for the Concours d'Elegance of Michigan. It was 700 miles up, with a cracked windshield and no rear view mirror.

My windshield was clear this time, but that stupid mirror fell off again. I've since decided it's too heavy for its own good. It happened a couple weeks ago, actually, when I lazily romped over what was probably the two-millionth manhole cover I'd pounded in the IS.

But this weekend I was headed to Jekyll Island, one of Georgia's barrier islands that sits about 20 feet above sea level, protecting the port of Brunswick. It's also provided a winter getaway for New England corporate magnates since the late 19th century. Here, the chamber of commerce decided to approve an event I've been looking forward to for months.

Caffeine and Octane, now managed by Cox Communication's automotive arm, has plugged Caffeine and Octane at the Beach since last fall. It's the marketing department's first stab at expanding the Atlanta-based show to more markets. They picked the three-day span of this St Patrick's Day weekend to attack; nearby Savannah's population is known to swell by half a million as the River Street Ankle-Breaking Convention stumbles down every year.

I arrived around noon on Saturday, the spotless cerulean sky left no shelter for a merciless sun, which wasn't helping my sunburn. But it was perfect for a day outside looking at cars. The temperature barely broke 70.

What this weekend meant for local government was a big pay day, with the booth at the entrance to the island ringing its proverbial cash register constantly. Normally quaint, the beach village adjacent to the Jekyll Island Convention Center (where the show was being held) was scattered with cars and wanderers. Jekyll is actually owned by the state government, so new developments are severely restricted in order to preserve the island's natural beauty. There's only one gas station on the island and lodging here is limited to just a handful of hotels and vacation rentals.

My first move after parking near the Beach Village was to find some shelter from the sun. Inside the main hall of the convention center was an odd array of cars ranging from a Ferrari F430 Scuderia to a BMW 550i GT--I like to think the latter was subject of intense event planning contention. God I hope it was. But it soon became clear that if the increased organization of C&O has been apparent in the past couple years, then this weekend on Jekyll Island was the marketing team's magnum opus. Booths inside sold vintage airbrushed motorcycle helmets, line drawings of BMWs drifting, racing accessories, and crocodile driving loafers. Throughout the weekend, seminars were held in various rooms of the convention center (for a fee), with names like Chip Foose headlining the festivities.

Show literature promised 300 cars and a rough head count verified this. It was a much more restrained showing compared to the Atlanta show, but also a chance for neat-car owners in the Georgia and South Carolina low country (and bits of north Florida if we're keeping tabs) to show off their rides. This produced a few notables I hadn't seen before, like a 1958 Bentley that was ordered by a Venezuelan dignitary. The twist in the story is, he never took delivery, so the car eventually found another home in the oil-rich South American country, remaining in that family's ownership until the late 90s.

While we're discussing deviations from the Atlanta show, I'll also note that Jekyll's buzz was largely centered around bespoke hot rods. Those cars earned prime beachfront real estate on the front lawn of the convention center.

One of them, dubbed "La Cucaracha," was a Buick rat rod with a straight-eight set in front like an industrial auger. I can only imagine it made a sound to match. There were two electric vehicles, but no Tesla badges here. One was a banana yellow Volkswagen van; the other, a Honda motorcycle with a data bank sized slab of batteries between rider and handlebars.

Overall, the show's pace and restraint fit the mood of the weekend, and definitely the picturesque setting. Gone was the free-revving and stereo-cranking one might associate with the big city meet, but gone also was a bit of the diversity you'd find in Atlanta. To be fair, there was a Brazilian market Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, which featured unique bodywork more in tune with its amphibious cousin. And the Bentley was special as well, along with the hot rods. But certain cars were missing from the young show, ones which should have been there.

British sports cars were in short supply, save for a Triumph, a Morgan and an Allard; a very special car indeed, but this hardly runs the gamut of a full showing. Gone also were the Italian sports cars of years past--think Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Fiat. Only your standard, contemporary Lamborghinis and Ferraris were on hand, with a Testarossa and DeTomaso mixed in for good measure.

All of this is not to say it wasn't a good show, because the most important thing about Caffeine and Octane was still present on Jekyll: the enthusiasm. People talked to each other, swapped stories and passed along knowledge. There were fans young and old, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends and everything in between. Because, at the end of the day, it all goes back to that same love of cars.

Several months later, I took another trip to Jekyll for Points North Atlanta Magazine, which you can read about here.

Caffeine and Octane Atlanta, June 2016

Caffeine and Octane was a quiet affair on this humid and overcast June morning. When I arrived at around 9:30, there were plenty of empty spaces, even inside the main show area. Nonetheless, there were quite a few people walking around, some holding umbrellas, most just taking refuge from the periodic drizzle underneath trees.

What was there looked pretty good, and since I took relatively few photos, I'll just post the majority of them below and let you see the show for yourself.

A Gulf-Livery Porsche.. Hybrid? Caffeine and Octane, December 2015

This past Sunday morning was reminiscent of a calm spring day in north Georgia. The only indication we were close to winter were the plush antlers peeking above the roof of a Ferrari 458. Mild temperatures and bright sunshine brought record numbers of crowds, and that seems to be a trend nowadays for Caffeine and Octane.

Since C&O moved to Perimeter Mall a couple years ago, I've noticed a surge in crowds that's only slightly masked by the increase in parking lot space. The new location, geographically, has a lot to do with that. Nightmarish traffic notwithstanding, Perimeter Mall is an ideal place to host a show that' just continuing to grow, not only by word of mouth, but now thanks to its own organization that offers merchandise and web content. The reality is, this location can be reached by anywhere in metro Atlanta in under an hour on Sunday morning, and that's important.

I started out, as always, on the outer fringes of the parking lot. It's a mixed bag here, mostly spectators' cars that range from stock Nissan Maximas to Land Rover Defenders and turbo Saabs.

It's interesting for me to see what kind of cars people are drawn to at shows. Not too long ago, I would have ogled at a stanced Miata, but nowadays I pay more attention to rarer stuff like this Alfa Romeo Giulia Super sedan. A car that I only imagine was extremely common in Italy, the Alfa represents an interesting phenomena. Many of them don't survive today given its commonality, and even fewer survive here in the states, since they weren't imported here when they were built.

Further down, a Ferrari 328 GTS looks sinister in black. A few rows down from that, a modern take on a classic Volkswagen. In the late 1970s, Volkswagen sold the Caddy (branded as the Rabbit Pickup in North America), essentially a Volkswagen Rabbit with a pickup bed. It wasn't hugely popular here, but it's enjoyed a comeback in recent years, and seems to have inspired this Jetta owner to turn his sedan into a small pickup.

Other unique showings included a pair of Alpina-tuned BMWs. I can only assume these 80s examples are fairly rare, as I've never seen any before.

Across the way, I noticed a giant crowd had gathered around a roped-off display. Powder blue and orange peeked through, and I finally saw what it was, a Porsche 918 in classic Gulf racing dress. A front-on photo was going to be impossible, so I employed some of what I learned in photojournalism and moved to where the people weren't. Or at least where there weren't as many.

And those kids I ragged on earlier for liking stanced Miatas? As I said, I can't blame them much, and furthermore, I shouldn't be so judgmental. They're carving out a future generation, just like I am at 22, of car lovers that will carry the torch of the hotrodders and club racers. For all the big money that shows up here, the Ferraris, the Bentleys, and the special Porsches, the real group that matters are the grassroots enthusiasts. These kids recognize that in the stanced Miata; it's just a car built by someone who truly loves cars and what they can stand for.

All throughout the "show field" you can see this juxstaposition. The businessmen who come out to impress, opening up their 458's engine compartment and giving it some revs; the Paulding county guys with homemade subwoofer boxes and broken bumpers; the guys who've been on the scene for 40, 50, even 60 years, graduating from Chevy Vegas to Corvettes to Malibus, then back to Chevelles again; everybody here has at least a baseline level of respect for everyone else, and that's what will keep this show growing far into the future.