Among the other adventures this weekend, the boy and I took a couple of hours on Saturday morning to pop over to Cars and Coffee Richmond, the local branch of the popular informal automotive enthusiast get-together phenomenon. I’ve been meaning to check this sort of thing out for a while; as I’ve heard good things.

I’ve always thought car shows were cool, but so many of them that I’ve been to have been all about old boomers showing off how original/clean/modified/perfect their particular money pit is while making snide comments about everyone else’s door weatherstripping not being original enough and thus invalidating the restoration.

Cars and Coffee, however, isn’t like that. It’s more informal and certainly more welcoming; it’s just a bunch of people who like cars enough to get up really early on a Saturday morning to hang around in a mall parking lot, talk about cars over warm caffeinated beverages and look at each other’s rides; no classes, no contests, no prizes. It’s pretty cool.

What struck me the most was the variety that showed up; it’s not just old Corvettes and Mustangs (though there a bunch that showed up), but everything from exotics…

…to neat and occasionally quirky japanese performance cars…

…to yes, American classics as you expect them…

….and how you might not…

…but mostly, there’s a pretty nice sense of variety you might not get at another kind of car show; it’s not all fancy stuff; there are just as many faded Miatas, quirky European roadsters, half-finished projects, stock BMWs, and torn-up track cars mixed in with the Mustangs, Camaros and Porsches. Everybody’s welcome, and just as many people were geeking out about the Subaru SVX as they were the perfectly restored numbers-matching 70 Chevelle.

These were my people, appreciative of the tremendous variety out there in the world of motoring.

For my part, I had a great discussion with a couple of guys about their cars, including a gorgeous Fiat 500 Abarth, the Tesla Model X (with the weird but ingeniously designed rear gullwing doors), and this nice unassuming Vista Cruiser that shows up occasionally. I even had a couple of people ask about my car, which I parked politely on the fringes – seems the Scion iM is, at this point, kind of a novelty; a lot of folks were asking “what’s that?” and a couple of others were very interested (more interested than in the late model 911 parked next to me!) because they hadn’t seen one in the real world yet.

And yes, I plan on going back…they do it bi-weekly around here, as long as the weather’s good (“if you have to cut your windshield wipers on, C&CR is off”), and it’s a good time (plus, Sugar Shack Donuts is righ across the street!). If you’re into this sort of thing, or know someone who is, get thee to google and figure out if there’s an event in your area and check it out.