(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – Never been before. Seen lots of photos. Heard and read lots of stories. This chilly morning I went with my son in his ’65 Belair headed to what was to be our first of three events for the day. We’d only planned on two, but heard about another at the 2nd stop and decided that needed to be included.
Cars & Coffee in Lexington had been one event until a few months ago when the organizers decided to go their separate ways and now host their own events. The first we stopped into was held at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky out on Airport Road next to Bluegrass Airport. My son and I are familiar with this place as he attended a young aviator’s camp out here for a few summers and managed to notch some time in his log book.
How was it…? More cars than would fit in the space provided and cars were coming and going the whole time. There was a Lamborghini, a few Porsches, handful of Miatas, and plenty of other stuff. I went mainly for anything pre-1980 with some exceptions. It’s not that I don’t like Mercedes, a Subaru WRX or two, or even a late-model big-3 muscle car, but they are not my favorite.
There was plenty of stuff for me to take photos of and check out. All the twenty-somethings and younger were huddled around the Lambo which kept me from getting a snap of it. I will say…that thing sounds SO sweet. The baby blue Toyota Corona was super nice and all it was missing was a Datsun B210 parked next to it. The red Cougar had a 3-speed in the floor which I haven’t seen in many, many years. The Chevy SS has the Holden (RIP) pedigree and was sporting a blower. The white 1st-gen Firebird parked in another lot and was all by its lonesome when I spotted it. I hadn’t seen this particular one before and it looks clean and classy. The green Torino was recently purchased by my son’s best friend’s stepdad. I am a Torino fan and this thing has great bones for becoming super cruiser.
Clean, early Supras are seldom seen around these parts and to top that off I hadn’t seen a white one since they were new. I had a tough time trying to get a shot of this Pontiac Gran Prix Aerocoupe, but eventually my patience was rewarded with a tiny opening to get it. This white Hellcat Charger is the first white Hellcat I’ve seen. If it were mine I might have to put on some black wrap on a few panels then add a spot light just to catch some folks off guard.
Overall I liked the event though I had a feeling that the other one would be larger and more diverse when we arrived here. The next article will let you know if I was right.
No police were summoned while we were there though burnouts did occur as folks were leaving the venue. I cannot report any Mustang crashes and that’s likely because there weren’t human targets lining the road. There was one idiot that brought their firebird up on boost for a vulcanizing session. With activity like that the organizers might not be allowed back. I’m pretty sure if the airport security had caught on the whole event might have been disbursed. Photos of said behavior…? Nope. I’m not going to glorify their activity. That was not the time or place for it. And gearheads continue to get a bad rap…
Come back and check out our coverage of the Cars & Coffee at the Bluegrass Stockyards.
My uncle is part of the Porsche club that hosted this event (or at least they used to?). Would love to go check it out but that’s a 6 hr. drive for a C & C event.