It was just last fall that the Houston Coffee and Cars event, one of many nationwide morning car meets, felt it had to temporarily ban Camaros, Mustangs, and Chargers after too many of those owners were doing burnouts and donuts leaving the event. They had another event this morning with a huge number of cars and… now they’re banning ‘all modern muscle cars.’ Permanently.
When this happened last fall, the organizers told us that “safety is a cornerstone of our events. We take significant steps to ensure it, such as hiring security officers for each gathering, comprehensive planning, ample event staffing, and clear communication of our rules against reckless behaviors like revving engines and performing burnouts.”
Images from the event show a fun mix of cars and a huge crowd, with hundreds of cars ranging from exotics like a Dakar-spec Porsche 959 to fun vintage stuff like a Ghostbusters Ecto-1 replica. The event was held at Post HTX, which is a food/workspace at the edge of Downtown Houston near UHD.
Unfortunately, not everyone wants to partake in the serene enjoyment of cars in parking lots and those people tend to insist on burning it out as they leave the event, resulting in situations like this (at the end of the video):
We’ve seen worse, but you’ll notice in this video there are kids, buses, and other people and things around that you generally don’t want to strike with your car.
Quick PSA here: Don’t be this person. There are times and places for car idiocy and they are far away from events like this. Car culture is not guaranteed to stick around and city governments in many places are looking for a reason to kick car events out, let’s not give them more ammo. Also, just because horsepower has become cheap, it doesn’t mean you need to cheapen the hobby.
Ok, back to what happened this weekend. There were burnouts and idiocy again and, with a million kids (and adults) armed with TikTok and Instagram, of course, the inevitable happened:
Here’s the official post:
If you can’t read it it says:
It all starts with you. These are the so called “enthusiasts” who have ruined our car gathering. Don’t complain when we do invitationals from starting today.
All modern muscle cars, mustangs, Camaro, charger & challengers, permanently banned.
And then there were interactions like this:
There’s nothing wrong with a V6 Mustang, of course, though I’m not sure it qualifies as a muscle car.
Again, I sympathize with the organizers here as it’s difficult to keep people away from a public event and, yet, it’ll be increasingly harder to find places that’ll host a car event if some percentage of people who attend act like they’ve got BB-sized testicles.
As our pal Zerin Dube, who alerted us to this, explained:
Houston people aren’t that smart, even though we’re surrounded by rural territory. They choose to do it right there. Been like that for at least a decade now and why I don’t go to any of those events.
It’s true. I grew up in Houston and there are a number of places you can do this without bothering anyone. At some level, I guess, bothering people is the point.
I do take some issue with the idea of “modern muscle cars” however, because it’s fairly broad and I’m not sure it’s just people with modern muscle cars who are doing this. For example:
As you can see in this video, proclaiming Houston Coffee and Cars “ruined” the first car is… a new Toyota Supra. Does that count as a muscle car? In the video from last year, there was an E90 BMW doing burnouts. Sure, people with Dodge Chargers and Challengers who put their Instagram accounts in their rear windows seem to be disproportionately at fault, but there are plenty of normal people who just buy new muscle cars.
It is possible to do these events without this happening. At the Galpin Car Show last fall there were tons of high-horsepower vehicles and very little shenanigans, which I put down to good security, good planning, and a mutual respect in the car scene that involves some self-policing.
If the modern muscle car set in Houston wants to continue to be involved it is, ultimately, up to them to prove they can behave like adults and not just wangs with steering wheels.
To paraphrase: “It’s a car culture, if you can keep it.”
Photo: Instagram SpeedHouston, TikTok CPHCarSpotter
I suspect my 2005 Pontiac GTO would be unwelcome, but I’m not in Houston. I have been to a C&C where there were a bunch of cell phones out ready to record. I kinda wanted to get to the head of the line, rev up like I was about to do something, then just slow walk it.