I’m so tired and I have to get up wildly early to get to the airport so I can go home, but despite how much I plan to complain, loudly and while gripping an arm with a strange and fierce intensity to the person unfortunate enough to be seated next to me on the airplane, I believe that RADwood 2026 was worth it. And, if I may be so bold, I’m quite pleased with what the Autopian managed to bring to the whole, loud thing.
I guess most notably we brought our tiny Mazda 787bb and the wide, deeply purple and feral Vector M12, both of which we drove as part of the Wheels In Motion part of RADwood, which was really just Cool Cars Driving Between A Lot of People and the San Francisco Skyline. The little Autozam-dressed-as-a-Ferrari F40-dressed-as-a-Mazda-racecar had no problem doing a bunch of laps, happily driven by our own Mercedes, but I only got four runs from the Vector, because it cooked its own clutch right after the first run.
I can’t say I’m shocked.
We’ll have video of that part of the fun soon, I promise. But for now, please let me show you some of the other fantastic cars that showed up! Because that’s what I do, dammit, see cars and places and then gush about them to you. I love it when you can be there right with me, but, look, I get it, you’re a big shot, so we’ll just do it this way for now.
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Let’s start with our Autopian Reader Meetup the night before, which was, at least in part, a sort of salon des refusés of cars that didn’t make the cut.
Okay, first, I know this 1974 VW Super Beetle wouldn’t be RADwood eligible because it’s, you know, from the ’70s. But holy hams, was it a stunner. It was perfect! Just stunning, inside and out, and Derek, the owner, has taken spectacular care of it.
That’s an 1808cc engine in there, too, so be warned, this thing is a beast, with a capital, um, east? That doesn’t work. Let’s just say for a Beetle, it’s quick.
Derek was nice enough to bring a CRT, as requested, but we eventually went with another CRT that was loaned to us, because the old-school composite image quality was just a bit better than the VGA-using-a-converter setup was. Blame weird old Apple II artifact color!
There were rad-era qualified VWs, too, like this fantastic 1984 VW Rabbit GTI that the current owner bought from his best friend decades ago and still drives! It was so good; a classic in active use and being enjoyed!
This was a car that made it into RADwood: a first-gen MR2 with the V6 from a Sienna swapped in. And supercharged. It was an absolute marvel of engine-cramming engineering. The clever Autopian who did this swap built this car for his dad, and he drives a second-gen MR2 with the same swap. How are our readers so damn good at this stuff?
Remember when we drove that steaming pile of 375,000 mile taxi across the country? At the end of our journey, we were greeted by this nearly-perfect sibling of our taxi, and it showed up again for our meetup! Hot damn.
This was just stunning; an Autopian named Nathan opened the hatch of his BMW E39 wagon to reveal what, at first glance, seemed like a bunch of Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars. But they were not: they were 3D-printed cars that he had modeled by hand, and they were staggeringly detailed! Here, we shot a reel with this Autopian, so I’ll let him explain more:
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Wow. Just wow.
The only mishap of the night was this fantastic RX-7 that didn’t want to start when it was time to leave; I’m happy to report that it eventually did start, and left under its own power, its dignity intact.
Look what came on the same transport truck as our Vector! A Trabant! A fantastic little Trabant wagon! We shared a transport with the Petersen Museum, and this lovely little Duraplast darling was theirs. For someone out there, a Vector and a Trabant is their perfect two-car garage, and you know that person would show you a hell of a time pretty much anywhere, but the chances your night would end up either in a dingy Chilean prison cell or floating in a dinghy in the Aegean would be pretty high.
This Oldsmobile Silhouette is so unashamedly, unrepentantly ’90s that it makes me wildly optimistic about a future that we kind of screwed up. It’s fine, I’ve made my peace.
This Vanagon sporting a 1.8-liter VW/Audi turbo swap was so clean, and the corduroy in it so fresh, that I should have rested my head upon it in order to get the headlines for this article. Get it? Headlines? Jeezis, I’m sorry. It’s so late. That joke is so old it probably tells itself to people.
There was a giant cassette tape here, sure, but what’s behind it?
Look at that, Pioneer has a Citroën H-Van! This one seemed to be a real one that was restored, not like some other ones there that were electric bootlegs of H-Vans:
Still fun, sure, but it’s not a real H-Van.
Oh look, it’s the car that rich guy who dresses like a flying squirrel (?) drives. I wonder how often he has to clean trash out of that huge front jet intake?
I haven’t seen a Honda Accord this nice in … decades? This 1981 Accord reminded me how ubiquitous these were when I was a kid, and how comprehensively, brutally gone they all are now. It was incredible to see this.
I don’t know the story behind this Mercedes-Benz W123 wagon, but I admire the commitment to the filth.
A Nissan Axxess! When was the last time you saw one of these?
This Fiat Strada parked in our section was absolutely stunning. I’ll do a whole Cold Start on it soon, because the owner did some fantastic mods to it I need to show you.
What’s more rad-era than a Ferrari Testarossa? Almost nothing. Fun fact: testarossa means “red testes” in Etruscan!
Oh, and the randomly-generated Apple II cars were a hit! Lots of people came up to make their own cars, and I gave away a good number of 5.25″ disks with cars saved to them, ready to be booted into any Apple II!
We ran the whole thing from the 110V outlet in our Mazda CX-90 tow vehicle, so, you know, if you need to run some ’80s hardware on the road, that Mazda can definitely handle that.
Everyone had a great time; I saw so many Autopian shirts in the crowd, it was really delightful and meaningful to me, as was getting to talk to so many readers in person. Maybe the speakers were a little too close to us, and the music a bit loud, but whatever, it was a blast, and so many people attended.
Car culture is still thriving, that’s for damn sure, and I was delighted to see that demonstrated, so loudly and viscerally.
Top photo: Jason Torchinsky
Also, the muddy Mercedes has a story. I’m not sure if this cheapens it or they were really committed to having it muddy:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/De7AcP9kgZD/?psln=d29jZG11N25vNm44
Looks like a blast, although I’m a little disturbed by the apparent gatekeeping..it doesn’t seem like this venue was hurting for space, so I’m not sure why so many cars were turned away.
We’ll have to see if they are similarly choosy for the Charlotte event next April. Last year they had more space than they needed.
Rotaries, baby.
I was at the same company for 24 years, which meant I was able to recycle my jokes and always have a fresh audience. When my daughter heard this, she said, “So, you were like an NPC.”
When I learned the kids had a term for those in game characters, I immediately felt old.
When I need a moment of 90s car culture I go to Lou Cerrito’s One of a Kind Audio on Route 1 in Cranston (Rhode Island)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDilBuRFq7Q
Oh man, this is how I know I’m getting old.
It’s always a highlight seeing a car that was everywhere in the 80s or 90s but has disappeared from our roads.
That looks awesome! I wish I was a best-coaster sometimes.
On a random suggested Facebook feed over the weekend, I saw that Mercedes-Benz W123 wagon being sprayed with a mixture of water and mud, then hand-detailed with more mud tossed on for effect.
The mud should have been earned by driving through a large muddy puddle over and over. I can confirm, it works. I suppose in the sunny and perfect CA there are no local dirt roads with puddles nearby. Which is an excuse for a road trip.
We had just had rain a couple days before!