Only a couple weeks after the Vorsteiner/M-Fest meet held in Orange County, CA, we had the opportunity to check out the first Hot Import Nights event of the season in Anaheim, home of the Angels and Mighty Ducks. We had high expectations for the event as it was slated as the only HIN event to come to Southern California.
Arriving at the venue, we were mind boggled by the long waits. It took most spectators over an hour to get into the show. After waiting in line to purchase a ticket, you would then have to wait in another line to go through security and then finally get into the show. Let’s not forget the bathroom and food lines. Those took roughly an hour each as well…
The long lines meant that everyone and their mom came down to check out HIN. But was the show even wroth all the waits?
Well for et, we were left very disappointed overall. As always HIN had plenty of eye candy for the guys with stripper poles scattered across the venue. But for the car show, our expectations were let down.
We should note there were rows of Euros within the show mostly ranging from BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. However; it was a rare sight to find an Audi or VW; and if you did, the cars were modified for the wrong reasons…
At HIN, too many cars were built for the wrong reason, which was to win import shows. This meant more items on your mod list equals a higher score. This direction taken by some Euro owners has grown in the past few years and unfortunately we’ve witnessed several Euro project cars plunder with distasteful modifications.
We’re hoping this changes soon. Maybe it’s just happening in Southern California but it used to be European cars were built to be clean, functional, motorsport-inspired, themed and tasteful. We’ll see at the next show…
On the other hand, we should commend a few for building some top-notch material such as Eric Shih’s supercharged BMW M3 widebody (full feature soon). Also James Ma’s widebody Audi A4 with a top-mount turbo (et 12/08). But our favorite car at the show was Juan Vega’s ’00 GTI 1.8T with a GT3076R big turbo, shaved R bumpers, orange anodized rollcage and 18” Tracer Tech wheels and plaid upholstery. We’ll have his full feature later this summer.
We don’t want to discourage you from attending HIN from our review but just be aware of the scene there and its Euros. Then compare it to the Euro event nearest to you, whether its Waterfest, H2O, WaterWerksNW, Wustefest or Eurowerks. You’ll see immense differences and hopefully more inspired by what really makes a car tastefully Euro!