The top classic car shows are called Concours d'Elegance - that's the epitome in car shows. It's a term that came from Paris back in the 20s. Gentleman would have their fine cars and they would actually paint them to match the color of their ladies' high fashion attire and they would drive up and down the streets there in Paris. It was grand time for the automobile and fashion.
The most famous car show of all is the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Monterey, California. It happens every August. And I might note that there were 27 best of class last year and 24 of them were using Meguiar's products. We also broadcast from there and interview all the famous people and show the amazing cars on our television show.
On our new website, www.carcrazycenter.com, one of the things we are going to offer is an event schedule. We will be showing all the car shows coming up, where they are at, and other information about them. We have seven different channels on this website. One of the channels is car racing news and information. Another channel lists all the car collections/museums around the world, we have about a 1,100 of those identified. So if you are a car enthusiast, you can plan your vacation around places to see cars.
Q: What are some of the car trends that you are seeing when you go to car shows?
One trend that I really enjoyed is over-restoration of higher end cars. The cars are restored not just to the orginal, but better. They look just spectacular. But we are seeing a moving away from that trend now. Another trend that is losing momentum is perfecting a car to the point where you don't want to drive it. These guys would restore a car and bring it the car shows on a trailer and then put it back on the trailer to take it home to their garage. It's my feeling that these cars are meant to be driven.
Car shows very often now are including cruises, if you will, in their calender of events. The owners take the cars out for a tour a couple of days before the event. Even the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is doing some touring in these expensive unbelievably perfect cars. It's a rather challenging tour, it goes up hills and all over the place. You don't have to participate, but the fact of the matter is that if you tie with another car for your class, the car that went on the tour will get extra points.
Another trend I like to see is events that happen on the streets rather than being on a remote location. Most car shows are on a golf course or somewhere that is not highly visible to the general public and so most people don't ever get to see a car show. But we are having now more and more events that are happening on the streets of the cities. Even right on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. We have an event that takes place on the streets of Reno called Hot August Nights and they have something like 800,000 people that enjoy that event during August. There is the biggest one of all that happens on the streets of Detroit called the Woodward Dream Cruise. People come from about 30 different states and they have somewhere around a million and a half to two million people all on Woodward Avenue.
