Cars & Coffee, Mahwah NJ, Oct. 1, 2023

October 1, 2023 RichardReina Car shows, Events Cars & Coffee, Dunkin' Donuts, Mahwah NJ

The last time my driving club buddy Larry and I organized any kind of get-together for our misfit group of car enthusiasts was October 23, 2022, just under a year ago. In the interim, we had announced to our compadres that the days of arranging drives to breakfast destinations were over. However, during a recent conversation with Larry, he suggested that we could again “host” a Cars & Coffee which would involve no more work than sending an email. So we did, and we did, and the result was good!

We scheduled the shindig for Sunday October 1, and after a week of significant rainfall, we lucked out with a day that was sunny, warm, and clear. I counted 14 individuals who showed up, the vast majority of whom know each other from sharing office space at Volvo corporate. In my case, I’ve known some of these gentlemen for over 30 years. Ten cars which qualified as “special interest” were driven there, while a few souls drove modern iron, which was fine with us, because we were really there for each other’s company.

Thanks to Mike for taking the snap (after driving here from PA in his Volvo C40 EV!)

Cars started arriving at 8:30 am and we successfully occupied most of one row in the lot. The Dunkin’ in Mahwah had bagels, donuts, and coffee, and what more could a bunch of old guys want on a Sunday morning? We stood in the parking lot with our food and drink and gabbed the morning away. Cars started to depart around 10:30 and I made my own getaway a little after 11 am to get home for some personal business. After driving the Alfa as my classic car of choice for most of the year, I brought the Miata to this event so that I could put fresh fuel into it! Aside from a few local trips, I had hardly moved it. The ride to and from added another 120 miles to the odometer, which was good for it.

Larry and I decided that while we will adhere to the “no more drives” decision, hosting a Cars & Coffee once or twice a year might be worth it, so we’ll calendar this for a repeat performance in the spring of 2024. Sounds far away, but it isn’t!

Larry’s newest acquisition, a 1980 Olds Cutlass

Sunday Morning Cars & Coffee, Oct. 23, 2022

November 6, 2022 RichardReina Car shows, Cruise nights, Events Cars & Coffee, Dunkin' Donuts

On Sunday, October 23, 2022, we once again took advantage of a spacious parking lot adjacent to a Dunkin’ Donuts facility to host our own Cars & Coffee event. No driving was included in the plans, and we had a small but enthusiastic group of eight people (plus two VCNA retirees who were surprise guests) willing to mill about on what turned out to be a beautiful autumn morning.

The Dunkin’ Donuts on MacArthur Blvd. in Mahwah did its usual fine job in serving us bagels and coffee, and plenty of Sunday morning visitors were distracted enough by our vehicular lineup to break their routines and come over for a chat.

Cars in attendance included two Corvettes, a Chevy Nova, two Porsche 911s, a Mercedes-Benz turbodiesel, a well-preserved and rarely-seen Volvo S70, and your author’s Alfa Romeo. Interestingly, the imports outnumbered the domestic entries (3 Chevys versus 3 Germans, 1 Swedish, and 1 Italian), something we normally don’t see at our gatherings.

We may try to squeeze in one more driving event before the weather turns inhospitable for the winter. If not, we shall see what 2023 will bring!

Nothing but nothing looks like the back end of a C2 coupe

Sunday Morning Cars & Coffee, Aug. 29, 2021

September 28, 2021 RichardReina Drives, Events Dunkin' Donuts, Sunday morning cars & coffee

(Pardon the tardiness of this post while I attended to some other pressing matters.)

After the success of our first Cars & Coffee-type event of 2021, we decided to try it again; we even selected the same Dunkin’ Donuts location in Mahwah NJ. We had an enthusiastic turnout, and as much as this group has always enjoyed the morning cruise along country roads, there is something to be said for planting the car in one spot and devoting 100% of your time to chatting up the crowd.

The cars ranged from Corvettes (a C1 and C7), BMWs (a 2002tii and a 135 coupe), Porsches, a Nova, a Grand Prix, and your blogger’s Miata. Having arrived at 8am, much of the crowd was still hanging out at 11. Breakfast was top-notch (as good as a bagel and a hot coffee can get), and the late August weather, never predictable, cooperated. We enjoyed ourselves and we will do it again!

A TALE OF TWO BMWs

Both Sal with his 2002 and Art with his 135 were more than generous in offering me a chance to jump behind the wheel for a short spell. I haven’t driven a 2002 in who-knows-how-long, and I’ve never driven a Tii. Sal’s car is somewhat modified in the steering, suspension, and tire departments, although that’s not easy to detect by eye. He has ‘sport’ steering in it, with about a half-turn lock-to-lock (I’m kidding, but not by much). The car started right up, and the throttle response under the mechanical fuel injection was very linear. The 4-speed was easy to shift with a light clutch, and the sweet spot on the road was around 40mph in 3^rd gear (not unlike my Alfa). Dashboard ergonomics were German-funky. After 10 minutes, I still never found the windshield wiper control. Visibility with that tall greenhouse is outstanding. Fifty years on, it’s quite easy to understand the revelation that BMW’s little sports sedan brought.

Art’s 2011 135 has just enough connection to the 2002 to see the familial resemblance, but of course, this is a 21^st century automobile. All the controls are light, almost too much so, and the 6-speed is a delight to snick through the changes. There may be nothing quite as smooth as an inline-six (except an inline-eight), and BMW’s sixes are known for their sewing-machine precision in sound and performance. Funnily enough, I’m not sure that the dash ergonomics are much of an improvement over the 2002, but that is as much a function of electronics as it is design. For me, the size of this box is perfect, and many of the buff books at the time agreed, citing a 3-series car that had become too bloated. Art sought this out to have a RWD manual tranny ‘sports car’ and he’s got a jewel of one.

Sunday Morning Cars and Coffee, May 2, 2021

May 3, 2021 RichardReina Car shows, Drives, Events Cars and Coffee, Dunkin' Donuts, Sunday morning breakfast drive

Success! Our informal Sunday Morning Breakfast Group, which last held a gathering in September of 2019, managed to put together our own Cars & Coffee-style event this past Sunday. As an unexpected surprise, the “CarParkers” drive event held the same day resulted in dozens of additional cars joining us in the spacious lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts on MacArthur Blvd. in Mahwah NJ.

In our own group, we had perhaps a dozen and a half friends show up with their cars. On one hand, it was overwhelming to think that we had not seen each other in over a year and half. On the other hand, like the long-term companions we are, we fell right back into our lively repartee and wasted no time in catching up with each other, while those who procured new rides since our last drive enjoyed showing them off.

Hagerty and CarPark co-sponsored the other drive event along with Dunkin’ Donuts, the basic concept centering around a morning of driving to and meeting up at several Dunkin’ Donuts stores, with the chance to win some giveaways. I had alluded to this event in our own Cars & Coffee invitation, but frankly was expecting at most 10 or 20 other cars. The actual turnout was 3 to 4 times that, with a nice mix of older and newer exotics, including rarities ranging from a Ford Model T fire truck to a Sterling 825.

The breakfast line got a bit long at times, but mask-wearing and social distancing appeared to be at 100% compliance while inside. Outside was much less of a concern; we became unmasked, but our usual bear hugs were on postponement until a later date.

There was no driving element on this occasion as we knew that time for us to mingle and swap stories would need to take precedence. What surprised me was how much more enjoyable I found this arrangement. Rather than be tied to a table, I was free to wander from subgroup to subgroup, and ended up chit-chatting with more of the guys than otherwise. My drive event co-planner and I are already intending to include a Cars & Coffee event on our rotating schedule for the Sunday Morning Breakfast Group.

I was so distracted by seeing old friends and meeting new ones (talkin’ about you, the young couple in the Suzuki Cappuccno) that I simply failed to photograph every car in the lot. However, the ones that did make it into my Sony are below. Final note about the photos: WordPress seems to have changed the method to see full-size versions of them. For full-screen versions, right-click on the picture, select “Open Image in New Tab”, and then click on the picture again.