Cars are Machines

Part One

There is something incredibly simple about a cars & coffee meet.

Find a car park/street. Pick a morning. Tell a few people where you are going to be and hope some interesting machinery turns up.

There can be some complexities involved depending on where the car park is, of course. BUT On paper, that's basically it.

But anyone who has spent enough time around the local car scene knows the cars are only part of the story.

The cars get people there.

What happens around them is where the community begins.

A older bloke opens the bonnet of a car he has owned for twenty years and starts talking to someone half his age about it. A kid gets handed a Hot Wheels car and suddenly has a new favourite obsession. Someone turns up alone, grabs a coffee and ends up spending two hours talking to complete strangers about how every Falcon they've ever owned has had fucking paint fade.

That last one was me.

My first proper taste of this whole thing was back in 2022, and Mr Mark "Macca" McDonald’s Macca's Garage Cars & Coffee have a lot to answer for! 😂

2022 July

You start recognising cars.

Then you start recognising faces.

Eventually, some of those faces become mates.

You love it? We Love it.

One of the things I have always believed with Campbelltown Cars & Coffee is pretty simple:

I don't care what you drive or ride. If you love it, we love it.

It doesn't have to be expensive or rare.

It doesn't need a huge engine, flawless paint or thousands of dollars worth of modifications.

Maybe it's your pride and joy that only comes out on weekends. Maybe it's your daily. Maybe it's a new bike. Maybe it's something most people would walk straight past, but you've spent years getting it exactly how you want it.

If you love it, there's a conversation to be had.

That's something I think people outside the scene sometimes miss about ‘car culture’.

Yes, there can be competition. But it doesn't always have to be about one-upping the person beside you.

A good car community is about connection.

Cars just make the introduction easier.

You don't need some brilliant opening line to talk to a stranger at a meet. Point at something and say, "I love this colour. What is it?"

Conversation started.

Somewhere to belong

Making new friends as an adult can be bloody hard.

Work, family and life get in the way. Social circles shrink. People move. Relationships change.

Then you find something like a regular car meet.

You know that on a certain Sunday morning there will be people there. There'll be coffee. There'll be something worth looking at.

Most importantly, you already have at least one thing in common with almost everybody around you.

Maybe someone invites you on a cruise.

Maybe you discover a club.

Maybe somebody helps you with your car, or you help them with theirs.

Eventually the conversations aren't only about cars anymore.

They're about work, family, what you've been up to, who has broken what this week and who's buying something they absolutely don't need.

Before you know it, the people you originally knew because of cars have simply become your mates.

That's when a gathering becomes a community.

How I met Shauno

I first met Shaun while he was getting his own meet established up in Warragamba.

There was some noise online at the time from people in the car ‘enthusiast’ community who weren't particularly happy about another meet starting.

Yes, car meet politics are apparently a real thing. 🙄

It still sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud. These are largely free, locally organised gatherings where people turn up on a Sunday morning, have a coffee and look at cars. Yet somehow politics finds its way into everything ..

I saw what was happening and thought it wasn't good enough.

So I went to Shaun's first meet.

I introduced myself, shook his hand and basically said - keep doing your thing, ignore the bullshit and trust that he'd find the people who were good for what he was trying to build. If he needed help getting setup with anything, hit me up and would be happy to help!

Timeless Freddy - 2024

And Shaun wasn't standing there alone. Michelle and Anthony were there in those early days helping get the thing off the ground too.

That's worth remembering when you look at any successful meet years later.

What becomes hundreds of cars, sponsors, prizes and packed streets usually began with a handful of people willing to turn up, lend a hand and believe it was worth doing.

Those early people matter.

From those beginnings, what Shaun, Alisha and the people around them have grown at Warragamba has become something genuinely special.

The quantity and quality of machinery they attract is bloody hard to surpass. If you're into pro-street, you can lose some serious time walking around up there, but you'll find a bit of everything.

And they've thought about far more than simply filling Warragamba with cool shit.

There are trophies, sponsors, Hot Wheels giveaways for the kids, families, local businesses getting involved and a community that knows when that Sunday rolls around, Warragamba is going to be busy.

When a car meet is good for a town

This is another part of the story that doesn't get talked about enough.

A successful local car meet can be bloody good for the place that hosts it.

Shaun gets behind the businesses around Warragamba, and the support goes both ways.

People like Danny at the local bakery get involved. Bacon and egg rolls are being made. People buy breakfast and coffee. Other businesses get extra people through their doors.

For one Sunday a month, enthusiasts who might otherwise have had no reason to visit Warragamba are walking its streets, spending money

The meet supports the town. The town supports the meet.

A good event can bring life into a town for a morning, introduce people to small businesses, raise money for local causes, give families something to do and put people from completely different walks of life into the same space.

Then they start talking.

The ones that always show up for church

There's another group that deserves a massive mention when we talk about what grows out of these meets.

The photographers. The videographers. The creative people wandering around with cameras while the rest of us are talking shit.

Through Wollondilly Shire Cars & Coffee, Warragamba and the wider scene, I've met some seriously talented people.

Tony from True Image. His work is unreal.

Tyler from Basic Autophotography.

Young Aiden from Coxxy Media, producing unreal work time after time.

I believe Warragamba was also where I first met Peter from Vella Media.

And I remember starting out alongside people like Matt and Freddy when all of this was still pretty new to me.

It's been a long journey.

You watch people turn up month after month, event after event, experimenting with angles, editing, video, rollers and portraits.

Then one day you look at their work and think:

Fuck me, when did you get this good?

That's another part of car culture I absolutely love.

A car meet gives creative people a canvas.

Someone starts taking photos because they like cars. An owner sees their work and asks for a shoot. Someone else shares it. A business notices. A club gets them involved.

Suddenly a hobby can become paid work, a portfolio, a network or simply something they're bloody proud of.

And while they're doing that, they're giving something back to the community.

Cars leave the car park.

The photos and videos don't.

They become the record of that morning. The cars that were there. The people. The builds before they changed. The mates standing beside us. The events we'll still be talking about years later.

There is some serious creative talent in this community.

And I'm fucking here for it.

That's Car Church, baby.

The person who turns up alone

There is someone every organiser and every regular attendee should remember.

The person who turns up alone.

Maybe they've never been to a meet before.

Maybe they've watched the Facebook page for six months and finally convinced themselves to come down.

Maybe they parked around the corner first just to see what the place looked like.

Maybe they're sitting in the driver's seat wondering whether they're going to feel like an idiot getting out because they don't know anybody.

That person matters.

You have no idea what saying, "Mate, I love that thing," might start.

Maybe they have a quick chat, wander around and go home.

Maybe next month they come back.

Then somebody remembers their car.

Eventually somebody remembers their name.

A few months later they're parked beside people they know.

A year later they're the one making another newcomer feel welcome.

That's how communities grow.

One conversation at a time.

When the cars become secondary

Some of my favourite moments around the car scene have very little to do with cars.

They're the conversations beside them.

They're seeing people turn up for charity events.

They're watching clubs and groups come together when somebody needs support.

They're memorial meets where suddenly the cars aren't the reason everybody is standing together anymore.

They're watching someone who originally turned up knowing nobody become one of the people everybody looks for when they arrive.

The machinery is still important.

Of course it is.

We're car people.

But sometimes you look around and realise nobody has talked about the car beside them for twenty minutes.

They're talking about work. Kids. Life. Something stupid somebody did last weekend.

They're taking the piss out of each other.

They're checking in.

They're being mates.

That's the bit that's hard to explain if you've never experienced a good car community.

Protect the good ones

Like anything involving people, the car scene isn't perfect.

There are egos.

There are arguments.

There are politics.

There will always be somebody who thinks their brand, club, style or way of doing things is the only correct one.

Ignore most of that shit

Look at everything else happening around it.

Organisers giving up ridiculous amounts of their own time.

The mates who were there at the beginning.

People arriving before sunrise.

Photographers documenting the community.

Local businesses feeding everyone.

Sponsors throwing prizes in.

Clubs raising money for good.

Parents bringing their kids.

Kids falling in love with cars.

Complete strangers helping each other.

Friendships forming between people who, without this weird shared obsession with machinery, may never have met.

Those are the parts worth protecting.

Because the best car meets aren't necessarily the ones with the rarest cars, biggest trophies or largest crowds.

They're the ones people want to come back to.

Not only because of what might roll in next month.

But because of who they know will be there when they arrive, their mates.

A car meet might start with the machines in the car park.

What grows around them can become a real community.

And sometimes, years later, you realise the cars were simply how you found your people.

This is only Part One

There are a lot more stories behind the people, clubs, organisers, photographers and businesses that make our local car community what it is.

Next up, I'm sitting down with Shaun from Warragamba Cars and Coffees to talk about what he and the people around him have built, what community means to him, and what he's learned watching a Sunday morning car meet grow into something much bigger.

Because there are plenty more people behind the machines.

And I reckon their stories are worth telling.

-Schultz