If one is good, two must be better. That’s pretty much been my attitude on every event this year. Other than Karmecca every larger happening has involved two cars, so I had to do the same for the little car show. The 4AGE’s 1.6 liter displacement barely makes the cut off to be considered “little”, so the Camry’s larger 2.0 liter doesn’t quite fit in. Luckily they offer a display only option for “other unique vehicles” or something like that and they agreed that the Camry fit the bill.
I’ll be honest I don’t think everyone was on the same page. I did hear a couple of people express concern that these vehicles were in the show this year. I am pretty positive that if they needed the room for a fleet of Peel Tridents, or similar that they would have refunded my money and asked me to keep one or two at home. That wasn’t the case, and that wasn’t the majority of the people’s reaction either.
Just like a lot of the other events that the Camry has been at, it’s had some mixed reactions. We get comments anywhere from “My mom/grandma/wife had this car” to “oh shit its a sleeper” and of course my favorite “that engine doesn’t belong in there, but really it does”.
The Hachi still got a good amount of attention, but maybe not quite as much as previous years. To fair it is year three for it and not much has changed since the first time. It did allow some people from years past to easily find us again this year so that we could catch up.
https://brandonmostautomotive.myportfolio.com/little-car-show-2018
The downside to having the two cars on hand is that amount of time it can take up. You really can miss a lot of the show if you want to be the person that takes the time to hang out by the cars and take the time to answer questions. What I find really interesting is most people want to talk about one or the other but not both. Owning both I know they both have different types of feel and purpose, and I just assume everyone else will get it as well. I could be wrong.
One of the best parts about this show is the coastal tour that follows. Jamie got to be a passenger last year in the 86. This year she got to drive the Camry around with people waving as we passed. She said it got a few confused looks, but again overall very positive.
I don’t think I would do two cars again next year. Not because it isn’t fun, but the logistics of it all is a bit tough to manage. Car week is roughly 170 miles from home. Tuesday I was down with the Hi-C to cover the Concourse on the Avenue, then back home to drive the pair down on Wednesday. Wednesday evening was back home to drop the Hachi off to rest it noisy wheel bearing (yes the rear again). Then back early on Thursday morning with the Camry only to shoot the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance. It just becomes a bit of a time crunch to pull it all off.
To finish up our day we circled back to the beach after the tour to grab a couple of coastal shots of the pair. Similar to what the Hachi alone got last year.
On the way home I happened to catch the Mazda Cosmo making his way home. It’s not the best picture I’ve ever taken, but I only had a couple of second to grab the shot and didn’t realize the camera was still set at F13 causing shutter speed to only be 1/15 of a second. I’m amazed it came out as well as it did shooting across the car like that.
