New years bring new beginnings for lots of things, but one thing that doesn’t seem to change is car folk standing around in parking lots to look at other folk’s cars. Most of my youth and quite a bit of my adult life has been spent doing exactly that- in the cold, the hot, the sweltering, early mornings or late nights. For those interested in seeing what others are building in real life, it’s likely they will find themselves at a car meet, standing in a parking lot.

If you’re in the Atlanta area it’s entirely probable you’ve found yourself at Caffeine and Octane at least once, whether when it was an East Cobb meet, at the Perimeter or now, ever growing bigger than ever, at Town Center Mall in Kennesaw. For the first time in years I ventured out to this meet again, despite the colder temps, and was happy to see such good variety both in the show and in the non-show parking lots. For the uninitiated, often times the parking lot for spectators hold some cars that are more than show worthy just tucked away waiting to be spotted. The show did seem smaller than the last time I had been out, but I’m chalking that up to being early, and it being colder than we’ve had for a long while.

While some cars can be seen each month and are probably staples for a lot of regular spectators, it was very nice to see a lot more variety at this event than the last time I had been by, and I will likely be back regularly to see what else might show up next month.