Many people I know of hate this time of year. And why shouldn’t they? It’s cold, wet, gray and just downright miserable. The roads get the rocks that we all love so much plastered all over them, while on November 1st you start to see Jenny soccer mom drive her Suburban around with studded tires all the way until the end of April. Anticipating that one day of snow, however despite all of those negatives attached to the year. We all know and love the positives. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all bring different types of nationally accredited fun. Well last year there was a new docket added to the list, a car show that is held near and dear to our hearts at PDXine.com. It just so happened to come about right around the same time that we went live. So when we finally heard that Teske Design and Beaverton Toyota would be throwing it again. We grabbed our gear and decked the halls with the 2nd Annual PDXmas Tuner Bash.
Since Christmas is all about tradition, PDXmas shouldn’t be any different. So much like last year, this year was once again held for a great reason. Helping out those who may not be able to provide a large scale holiday season, and especially with the current economic trends, this was as good a year as any to come help out. And help they did. Once word got out that PDXmas would be returning, people from far and wide jumped for joy. Local and national forums erupted with chatter about cars being prepared. Along with vendors and sponsors from far and wide peeking their heads in to help out. Companies such as Kingpin Car Audio, Perrin Performance, HGI and many more donated time, effort and a drum full of raffle prizes to the event. And we were sure to help out as well.
Being the official media coverage of the event, we wanted to cover it all. And boy howdy was there a lot to cover! This show saw a 20% increase in registered cars. But with the gloomy wet weather the show would surely still be small right? Well you couldn’t be more wrong. At a whopping 205 plus spectator cars it was sure a sight to behold. Cars had filled every nook, cranny, crevasse and any other name for a tight space. Expanding out into the parking lot so much so that every once and a while you would see someone running outside so that they could move their car before it was towed! Since everyone showing was required to donate a toy worth $10 you could safely gamble that there would be around 205 toys donated and walk away with your chips. Too bad for you as the Northwest and its inhabitants saw no need to be a C student!
There were a total of over 1,300 toys donated to the charity “Toys for Tots”, along with $1,370 in cash donations. And these are just preliminary numbers! You may notice I am using a lot of exclamation points. This is somewhat unusual for this writer. But I cannot believe just how much of a success this show was (another coming in 5…4…3…2…)! Truckload after truckload was carried away. While the soldiers who graciously donated their Sunday to help out stood there in shock and awe.
Now I could ramble on about how great this whole thing was. But I do need to slip some car mumbo jumbo in here somewhere. Perhaps slip in isn’t the best choice of words, as I would need a small novel to fill you in on all the details. You may have seen the R35 GT-R we recently reviewed that we had along with us, or the amazing red one that was a part of Team Perrin. PSI brought along their R34 Skyline that we featured as one of our first articles last year and did an update on just a short time ago. An R32 Skyline was there as well, giving an almost complete spectrum of Nissan’s own super car. The Subaru’s came out in strong numbers as well, with the biggest brand representation of any make. But not to be put to shame, both Scion and Volkswagen gave it their all, each having close to twenty cars in the class. Another smaller (pardon the pun) category was my personal favorite, were the smart cars that were there. While a small (again sorry) class of only 2 cars, both were each heavily modified including being upgraded with some very rare or exclusive parts to them. However these were all shadowed by my and I’m sure many more attendees favorite car there. The vip styled Q45 Infiniti, which was as low to the floor as the jaws that stared upon it.
Once many of the festivities were all said and done, and just before people were literally passing out from a lack of sleep it came time to wrap it up, calling everyone to the stage for raffles and trophies. With gift certificates to Kingpin Car Audio and Perrin performance up for grabs, along with Scion RideMakerz and cases of NOS Energy drink people flocked up front tickets in hand. And while most people went and purchased a couple of tickets using whatever cash they may have had on them. One in particular went above and beyond buying $120 worth! It certainly paid off in the end, as he ended up walking away pockets and arms full of swag. When it came time for trophies everyone was on their toes to say the least. With so many more cars than expected many categories were expanded to a first second and third place, including Domestic, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and more. Want to know what cars won?
As everything finally wrapped up I felt a bit depressed. Sure it was good to end on a high note, but this does mean the end of car events for a few months. Yet with every end is a beginning. And so to sign off on car shows for the next year I will end with this. You have astonished me everyone. Not with just the charitable donations for the PDXmas Tuner Bash, but for the show season in general. Congrats to the winners and thank you Teske Design for such a great show.
