[Chris Sampang]

So I essentially got invited to go by another Tbird owner and it couldn't have worked out more perfectly: an 80s and 90s themed carshow in my own hometown near SF!

https://www.radwood.co/
https://jalopnik.com/radwood-is-back-and-its-coming-to-san-francisco-on-june-1826539240

Along with my car, I know of two other MN-12 birds that will be there! It's not too far from San Francisco International Airport, about 4-5 miles north via US 101. It's from 11 AM to 4 PM though participants have to get there around 9.

 

[dDUBb]

Sounds cool, but im a little burnt out on car shows. I would need to find a battery to get my SC running again. Who else is going to attend ??

 

[S4gunn]

This might actually be cool to see what cars come out of the woodwork. The last radwood was at the Lemons Race but i was busy making sure our car stayed on the track.

My wife also likes 80s music.
-g

 

[Chris Sampang]

My photos from the show are now up!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/csampang/albums/72157696690375681

 

[S4gunn]

So I went to Radwood SF (actually South SF) yesterday afternoon with my wife and kid. I saw two tbirds (I assume that one of them is owned by Chris Sampeng) but no one was around (I think they had just called for the awards) so I went off looking at other cars I haven't taken a part into lots of tiny pieces several times. I did notice that the SC was quite clean; impressive for a car of this age.

Highlights:
1) I finally saw a RAUH-Welt Bergriff car in the flesh. If you aren't aware of these cars, you basically send $30K to RWB and a Japanese guy comes over, cuts the metal fenders on your (formerly) rapidly appreciating air cooled Porsche, and he attaches gigantic plastic fenders on your car with rivets and RTV. Yes, seriously.

2) Personally, while i do like how silly this car looks, I'd never do this to a Porsche unless it was a total basket case. Then, I looked inside and saw it was an... auto. I wasn't sad about this at all.

3) The Nissan Figaro and Mazda Autozams were hillarious looking. I probably would want to buy one of these eventually as silly as they are.

4) Then, I saw my first 959. Man, this car was surprising in how... normal the interior and the rims looked. The surprising thing is that most people were just walking past it and looking at the F40. Unbelieveable. I did have a nice chat with the owner. He's was nice enough guy and I appreciate that he actually brings it out instead of leaving it in the Geneva Freeport or some other vault.

 

[S4gunn]

More pics. While the Safari style 911 was quite cool, there wasn't a single rock chip on the whole damn car. That makes me a little sad to see a car NOT used for its intended purpose. At least the RWB looks to have been run on the street.

PS. The nice owner of the 959 couldn't tell me what that yellow filler hole is for. Some kind of oil. Maybe blinker fluid?

Also, while the Figaro and the Autozam were brought in town by a "dealer", he couldn't give me much info about what it takes to make it CA legal other than it would add $5K to the cost so you need to register it in a non-smog county OR out of state. That sounds totes legit.
-g

 

[Bay_Bird93]

Looks like a good time, but I agree with Dan, car shows are just not my thing anymore.

 

[S4gunn]

1) Tiny Kei car engine needs carbon fiber intake for +20 HP
2) The F40 has 3 fancy aftermarket exhaust tips. My tbird has 4. Clearly more is better
4) I haven't seen an F40 in person in a while (I remember one in austin) but the interior is very... Fiero esque. I love the gated shifter though.

 

[S4gunn]

Finally, you gotta love enthusiasts of niche cars (like the tbird).
I don't think I've seen this clean a Peugeot outside of France at that silly 90s movie starring a french Adam Sandler knockoff.

IMO, I think it was worth a 15 min drive and a 30 min walk around with $0 admission. Feels like a better value than the San Mateo county fair ($10 corn dogs & $15 beers).

 

[Grog6]

Nice posts, Guys!

S4, those are some really cool cars; I've seen some from other cars and coffee type events, and no sleepers like these.

.
I can't imagine cutting the Porsche for wheel-well extensions.

Tell me it went with a guy with shower-spray-hairplugs and a Mr. T starter kit or something, lol.

 

[S4gunn]

Nice posts, Guys!

S4, those are some really cool cars; I've seen some from other cars and coffee type events, and no sleepers like these.

.
I can't imagine cutting the Porsche for wheel-well extensions.

Tell me it went with a guy with shower-spray-hairplugs and a Mr. T starter kit or something, lol.

Me too. Here's a video representative of the RWB owner & build experience. It might be cool but there are a ton of other toys I'd buy before i'd RWB a 930.

---
Yeah, this is CA and the whole tuner scene has diminished over the past 15 years; I also suspect the Radwood crowd isn't the same as Hot Import Nights (if this is even a thing anymore). I know people still jump through hoops to get crazy cars (I had a long chat at my last lemons race with a guy who paid vette money to have Flying Miata stuff the EROD LS1 into an NB Miata and then CA-legalize it).

Unlike HIN 17 years ago, I didn't see a single woman at Radwood who believed that car modeling with their thongs out is the route to stardom (I think they just skip the car scene and go straight to porn).

Back to cars though: at Radwood, I didn't see much in the way of crazy modding (or even Lemons level modding) except the RWB and the Safari Porsche. No LS1 swapped Volvos. I don't even think I saw a single S13 with an SR20DET swap. There was a 4door Skyline 25GT-X (I believe that's what they are called) with a GTR "look" from Canada (seems like a long way to drive for just a parking lot car show) so maybe that counts. Of course, I also think between the police presence and the lack of a Critical Mass of mustangs, no cars decided to sacrifice themselves by doing a burnout into a curb. That's probably a good thing.

A few more pics:
- One tasteful NSX widebody
- One decal job Delorean. I'm not sure if this is period correct or someone who wasn't around in the 80s bought this car and THIS was his impression of what an 80s decal job should look like.
- The "4 door skyline" clearly wasn't AWD so I don't think it was a full RB26DETT conversion as they had to help push it off the wet grass. Still kinda cool though (kinda reminds me of an Acura Legend I remember seeing 18-20 years ago with a full R34 look -- that was during "peak F&F").

-g

 

[Chris Sampang]

Nice to see your pics S4gunn! Sorry we didn't get to meet but I pretty much spent most of the last couple of hours just walking around and photographing whatever I could see lol. Still amazed that a car show even happened in my very specific suburb.

I find it amusing/amazing that I saw way more Ferraris and DeLoreans than Oldsmobiles or Mercurys, and surprisingly not a single Honda CRX (which was super popular out here in my 90s Bay Area childhood).

I enjoyed it though I'm somewhat introverted and thus the most memorable part for me was getting to chat with Conner DeKnikker from the TCCOA Facebook page when he had his 94 LX there, he left about 2 hours into the show for the NASCAR race at Sears. He actually now has my old premium sound amp & radio that will go into one of his other Birds sometime.

Joe the Super Coupe owner is pretty chill and since he had that car re-tinted in San Mateo recently, I'm gonna check out that shop maybe this week (I actually went there on Saturday but for the Tbirds they need the car to stay overnight for the install, due to the window configuration).

 

[S4gunn]

Nice to see your pics S4gunn! Sorry we didn't get to meet but I pretty much spent most of the last couple of hours just walking around and photographing whatever I could see lol. Still amazed that a car show even happened in my very specific suburb.

I find it amusing/amazing that I saw way more Ferraris and DeLoreans than Oldsmobiles or Mercurys, and surprisingly not a single Honda CRX (which was super popular out here in my 90s Bay Area childhood).

I enjoyed it though I'm somewhat introverted and thus the most memorable part for me was getting to chat with Conner DeKnikker from the TCCOA Facebook page when he had his 94 LX there, he left about 2 hours into the show for the NASCAR race at Sears. He actually now has my old premium sound amp & radio that will go into one of his other Birds sometime.

Joe the Super Coupe owner is pretty chill and since he had that car re-tinted in San Mateo recently, I'm gonna check out that shop maybe this week (I actually went there on Saturday but for the Tbirds they need the car to stay overnight for the install, due to the window configuration).

1) I'm less surprised on the Ferraris+Deloreans vs Oldsmobiles & Mercurys. This is the Bay Area. With rent/mortgages being what they are, people with the room and $$ to have an extra car/toy car are probably skewed more towards those who can afford to tie up larger sums of cash in their toy.
2) Look at what's on the road. I'd suggest a more accurate statement would be that there are "way more Euro cars than Domestics" in the roads in the Bay Area and I think this was reflected at Radwood as well.
3) Most Olds/Mercs which aren't project cars (like that clean GN) are "used up." I'm sure there are some old people still rocking Mark VIII or Olds 88 here in CA but I'd assume that they are more than likely old Camrys/Accord (see also #2).
4) I'd also bet that Cars for Clunkers killed off a bunch of domestics esp those full sized vehicles w/ V8s. I'm sure that CARB's extra scrutiny of these cars under "High Emitter Profiling" (which is OK for cars but not people) killed off a bunch of well.

---
BTW, if you want to see a town with a surprisingly large number of late model cars (but very little in the way of sports car culture), visit New Orleans. A few hurricanes and floods will do that to your car base and the shitty roads means that most people drive trucks/SUVs (even more than in the rest of the US).

- This is also the land were cash for clunkers &

 

[Chris Sampang]

2) Look at what's on the road. I'd suggest a more accurate statement would be that there are "way more Euro cars than Domestics" in the roads in the Bay Area and I think this was reflected at Radwood as well.

Oh for sure - I was not remotely surprised at the massive BMW count at the show, and of course the many different Japanese vehicles (except the conspicuously absent CRX). Is it me or is San Francisco the largest city in the US without a single domestic dealership these days? I know a Ford dealership on Van Ness shut down about 6 years ago, and the longrunning S&C Ford along Market Street is now the site of a Whole Foods supermarket, while Ellis Brooks Chevrolet is also in the past as well.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!

I like that Ferrari F40 in post #8. Those things are extremely rare - only 1,311 were ever made.

The RWB Philly video was really cool. That took some time and a lot of work to produce. I can tell you that! Thanks again for sharing.