European Vacation Car Show Rained Out: Our NYC Weekend

The Gamble

I just got back from a trip to New York and New Jersey, and let me tell you, it did NOT go the way we planned. Tom and I flew out for the European Vacation car show, hosted by the automotive brand Grassroots Edition. It was set for Saturday at a beautiful grassy farm surrounded by fall colors, the perfect backdrop to complement all the Euro cars that would have shown up.

Notice how I said would have shown up?

We flew out Thursday, and Friday morning we got the uncomfortable call. The show was canned thanks to the newly formed (and dreadful) Nor’easter slamming the Northeast coast. Honestly, I’m shocked they didn’t cancel it sooner. I took a gamble and it was a bust. Or at least that’s what I thought at first, before I took some time to really embrace the situation we were in.

What were we going to do, not show up? We’d already lost out on refunds for the Airbnb, the flights, the rental, the whole shebang, you know? So instead of throwing away $3k, I decided we were going. We made that 5AM flight Thursday morning and came up with a plan of action IN CASE the event got cancelled. Boy am I glad my videographer and I were smart enough to do that, because it was well worth it.

Rain Is Part of the Culture Out Here

Now, I’m no stranger to rain in the Northeast. I want to say almost every event we went to out that way this year either got rained on or was “threatened” by rain at some point. It’s part of the culture out there. You either take your car out and use it, or you don’t, and there really isn’t an in-between lol. Kinda funny how that works out, right?

Luckily, we have some great connections out that way. Even though our friends at Grassroots couldn’t host their grand show, they still knew a handful of people willing to shoot with us. I also can’t thank the team from PRIME NYC enough for finding us our main shoot of the weekend, and arguably some of the BEST media Tom and I have ever gotten. But I won’t speak for Tom LOL.

People talk about it all the time, but having connections makes living and working in the automotive space 10x easier. You don’t have to sift through endless DMs from strangers and gamble on whether the car actually looks like the pictures. The chance of getting catfished is HIGH these days, especially with how damn talented some of these young bloods are with their editing, and how FAST those edits come out. It blows my mind, in a good way though. It’s great to see people keeping the hobby alive without making the scene look bad.

These connections just make shooting so much easier. Having a shoot set up and ready to go with minimal back and forth is always the best, especially when you get the cars we got this time around. From a fire-breathing RX7 FD in the rain to a midnight run through NYC, the weekend turned into a goldmine of content. I’m genuinely grateful we were able to salvage such a wild weekend, one where most people would’ve thrown in the towel because they were a little afraid of getting their gear wet.

And don’t get me wrong, not wanting to get your gear wet is a real concern, and I really don’t blame anyone for it. But man, sometimes the shot is worth the risk, because this was hands down some of the BEST rain content I think I’ve ever seen shot and recorded. Chef’s own words, not even mine!

Thursday: Camera Gear, Pizza, and a Feast

We had quite the wild day in Manhattan right after flying in on Thursday.

First stop was the real-life B&H store, which lol, was EPIC. I never thought I’d see so much camera gear in one spot. They had it ALL. Specifically, they had the camera rain gear we needed, because I’d rather be prepared and not need it than not have it and really wish I did.

After that, we hit up Little Italy for some lunch. It was time for some authentic pizza. Little did we know that while we were headed to L’Industrie, we’d walk right into the 100th Feast of San Gennaro, the biggest and longest-running Italian festival in the country, which takes over Mulberry Street for 11 days every September. The streets were FILLED with amazing Italian food smells and so much culture. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life, so that was genuinely sick haha.

Before leaving, we met up with a guy named Nick who owns a wild Mercedes build. We didn’t get to shoot it this time, but Nick’s car is DEFINITELY on our list for next time we’re out there. It looks crazy clean in photos, so I can only imagine how wild it’ll turn out once Tom and I get our hands on it.

We headed back up toward the Airbnb after that, having spent lunch brainstorming how we’d plan out the rest of the weekend whether or not the weather cancelled the show.

Friday: The Call, the Evo, and a Sunset for the Books

Friday rolls around, and as I mentioned, the show got cancelled. A bummer, we know. But when your crowd of cars and attendees goes from 200 down to 40, that’s saying a lot, and nobody can help the weather. So what do you do? Well, you reschedule the show, because there’s no harm in still having it at a later date. I would think, right? Sure, you might lose a few people, but I’m sure the new folks coming out would make up for the ones who cancel.

Anyway, we rushed down to the city, since we were staying up in Greenwood Lake, NY. If you know the area, that drive takes about an hour to an hour and a half depending on traffic, or in our case, depending on which roads were closed from downed trees thanks to the East Coast hurricane look-alike lol. So we did what we do, blasted some tunes, and took a fun back road drive most of the way. Worth it for sure.

We had a shoot lined up and ready to go with Klim and his RKT-built Evo 8 rally car to do some insane rainy donuts. Side note: doing ANYTHING near the city honestly feels lowkey illegal, even on private property. Everything is SO close together, yet so far away haha. You’re surrounded by people almost everywhere, and then you roll up and do some shitties in a parking lot with an ARA-spec rally car that SCREAMS. You know you’re in for a wild time.

The day only got better from there. After we wrapped the Evo, we switched gears to a CLEAN Porsche wearing a wild Gulf restoration build. This car is something else. I gotta hand it to Klim and the RKT boys for doing some serious work on this machine. It’s a true gem to be around, especially living in a house full of its older and younger Porsche siblings. There’s a real heritage charm when this car goes by, and you can just see the passion and dedication that went into building it. The photos honestly don’t do it justice, but still, it’s a sight to be seen.

And then, the sky decided to show off. Right there at Klim’s, we caught one of the rarest sunsets I think New York has ever seen. Talk about natural beauty to the MAX.

Friday Night: NYC Night Run in the Downpour

After hanging out with Klim, we put the cars away and headed into the city for the infamous NYC Night Run that PRIME NYC and Grassroots put on. It’s an iconic route, and the photo locations are top notch. Especially when you get to the city and it’s RAINING. And I mean HARD rain, Left 4 Dead type vibes, where the downpour is so thick it shows up in photos as moving blankets of water in the air.

Our camera car for the night was a Nissan Stagea owned by Jose, a friend of a friend from Grassroots. If you don’t know, the Stagea is basically the GT-R styled front end in wagon form. It’s a right-hand drive import, and he got it for a steal. It was rad riding around the streets of NYC in a piece of JDM history like that.

The wildest part of the night? We ran into a foreign music artist, supposedly with over 1.3 million followers, shooting a music video at one of our locations. If that’s true, that’s INSANE. Never in a million years would we have thought we’d just roll up on HIS video shoot haha.

I can’t say running into music video shoots is common for me, let alone in the streets of NYC. And honestly, I get why a lot of people just go out and do it without permits. From what I heard, shutting a street down for about 3 hours can run you around $10K, which is absolutely wild to me. I never would’ve expected that much, but I guess anything is possible in the Big Apple, huh?

We grabbed dinner at a nice little New Jersey diner before heading back to the rental. It felt strange seeing so many people out at a diner at probably midnight, still eating and enjoying life. You don’t really see that back home in the Midwest, where most restaurants aren’t even open past 11PM.

And this diner, for lack of better words, felt like walking into the Backrooms. It was one of those classic diners with the wacky aesthetics, so you knew it wasn’t a regular place. Checkerboard floors, eccentric walls, oddly shaped tables, and it’s a bit fuzzy to me, but I think even the waitresses’ uniforms looked like a wild dream after somebody got sucked into a 90s vaporwave museum.

The food was amazing though. A nice tasty sandwich and a GRAND milkshake really hit the spot. Between the Feast in Little Italy and a packed diner at midnight, like I’ve kinda mentioned before, there was some strong cultural exposure on this trip that felt nice and fresh.

I could get all sappy and turn this into a super deep, meaningful thought exercise, but I won’t bore you with nonsense LOL. Shoot me a DM and I can chat with you 1:1 about how existential this experience felt haha.

We didn’t get back to the Airbnb until probably 2:30 or 3 AM. It was a LONG drive back through the rainy, windy roads, but thankfully we didn’t run into any downed trees or power lines on the way home.

Saturday: An Orange 1M Against the Green

We weren’t so lucky Saturday morning. Trees and power lines were down on the way to Klim’s, where we were planning to shoot the rally Evo doing shitties in the rain again. That is, until John gave us a ring: we were about to take a legendary BMW 1M out on a cruise back toward our Airbnb. So we cruised on up and spent the day shooting photos and video on the “upstate” side of New York. Even though it was just across the Jersey border LOL.

The 1M belongs to Sean, one of John’s friends who brought it in from out of state, so I totally get wanting to rip it on those Northeast back roads. I was the same way last year when I drove my Audi 8 hours out from Ohio, back when I lived there.

This orange was INSANE. The way it lit up the whole frame when the rain hit it just right, talk about an eye catcher. But that wasn’t all. We also had Justin’s Miata on some insane wheels, plus Ryan and his blue E39 M5. It was a total blast rolling through the countryside getting these rainy shots. Remember when I said we saved the weekend? This is how. We embraced the elements.

Shooting that vibrant orange BMW against the forest greenery was something else. The rain added some insane texture. One thing I didn’t think about at the time was trying some artsy shots with the water droplets, and looking back, that would’ve been SIIIICK. Oh well, next time.

We kept shooting until the rain really picked up. Before heading back to the Airbnb, we met up with John and Morgan, and they took us to one of the most famous hot dog spots in the country, Rutt’s Hut in Clifton, NJ, for the INFAMOUS Rippers. Boy, talk about a tasty old-school hot dog. It’s deep-fried until the casing rips open, and that thing was INSANELY good. I guess there’s a reason they’ve been crowned the best hot dog in the country more than once. So hell yeah, can’t forget that part of the story.

Then it was back to the Airbnb to dry off and edit, because by this point we were quite wet LOL. We were actually worried for a second that Tom’s gimbal was toast, but we think it’s fine. We crashed, relaxed, and the night faded into Sunday before we knew it.

Sunday: A Taxi-Yellow FD in Jersey City

If I’m being completely honest, Sunday hit us before we were ready. But nonetheless, we woke up and locked in our final shoot of the weekend.

We were in quite the pickle finding a car, since Sunday was one of the worst days of the Nor’easter. Finding somebody willing to take their ride out in that weather was getting exceptionally difficult. So we hit up all our friends, and luckily PRIME NYC came through again with a connection: an insanely cool and subtle widebody RX7 FD in taxi yellow. IYKYK.

While the owner had their day, we spent ours scouting locations. We ended up finding a killer parking garage in Jersey City with an epic view of the foggy NYC skyline and some killer angles of the skyscrapers surrounding it. Before you knew it, night rolled around, and we started capturing some of the best FD content I think I’ve ever shot. And mind you, I’ve shot quite a few FDs in my life now.

It was such a cool experience playing on the East Coast at night with another rotary machine. That exhaust bounced off the walls and just echoed off EVERYTHING. It was SO loud, and honestly I’m surprised we didn’t get kicked out for how long we were filming.

I’m SUPER excited for the video Tom edits from this one. If you’ve seen the new Resident Evil movie, we took some inspiration and made a sick little edit that’s a tribute to it, with a car feature twist. This video is going to be epic.

We shot well into the night, maybe 1AM? But it was worth it, because now we have a real story to tell. Knowing our audience, it’ll probably have a rocky start before going viral LOL, but we’ll deal with that when it happens.

The East Coast Knows How to Throw a Banger

I gotta say, this European Vacation was unique. We missed the core show, but the Grassroots team kept us busy the whole weekend, and I enjoyed every soaking-wet minute of it. Huge thanks to John, Eric, Morgan, PRIME NYC, and everyone we got the chance to hang out with again.

There isn’t a better car community across the country, and that I can attest to. The East Coast knows how to throw a banger time, rain or shine.