The Top 10 Event Stories Of 2019

This is where things start to get really interesting.

While the previous list of Special Features covered a lot different areas and stories, our Top 10 Event Coverage, is a little bit more straightforward. We love events. It’s where the real Speedhunting takes place and leads to so many other story and feature opportunities.

We were definitely spoiled by the quality of events this year, as it seems almost every organiser decided to try and step the game up further. Of course, it’s the cars and people that really make the events, but when combined with a great location, good weather and a semblance of organisation, you’re always onto a winner.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at what made the list for 2019. As before, this list is based solely on cold, hard page views alone.

#10. Car Meets > Car Shows: CSF x Players Select

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Players Select remains the best car show which I’ve never had the pleasure of attending. I’ve dropped lots of hints behind the scenes, but I think I’m still being too subtle. An event which takes place just a few weeks after SEMA, seems to serve as a highlight reel for the Las Vegas trade show. That’s no bad thing.

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Hosted by our friends at CSF and organised by our other friends at Players, it’s a show which we feel reflects what’s at the fore of current car culture. Considering it only happened recently, yet still managed to make its way onto this list speaks volumes about how much you enjoy this now annual event. Maybe 2020 will be my year?

#9. Taking The Day Off At Players Classic

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Should I ever find myself in a position where there’s a gun to my head, and I’m asked what’s the best car show on the planet, I think I’ll find myself relieved, as there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s Players Classic.

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I’ve said it more than once, but this is basically what I think our goal for a Speedhunters show should be. It just happens that Jay, Carl and the rest of the lads and ladies at Players have had a huge head start on us.

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It has everything you could ever want from a car show; a huge variety of cars, both new and old, representing every automotive sub-culture, one of the best venues on the planet, and now includes on-track action as well. Having been stretched out to two days in 2019, we hear that 2020 is going to add even another day. The best just got better.

#8. The Suzuki Jimny Takes Over Tokyo Auto Salon

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What’s surprising about this isn’t that the Suzuki Jimny proved so popular, but that this is the only piece of Japanese event coverage which made our Top 10 this year. I think this is testament to how competitive car events all around the world are now, rather than any slight against Japan.

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Our resident American in Japan, Ron Celestine, put together this story, highlighting some of the best and most interesting Jimny builds from the 2019 Tokyo Auto Salon. I’m not sure I thought I’d ever live to see the day that a compact SUV would prove more popular on Speedhunters than the rest of Tokyo Auto Salon, but I’m glad I’m here to witness it.

#7. Six Of The Best Cars You Didn’t See At SEMA 2019

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Despite the fact that SEMA runs for as long as it does, I don’t think that I’ve ever known anyone to walk away from it feeling like they’ve seen everything. There’s always a quiet corner (or an entire hall) that you can easily miss over the course of the four main days which it runs. It’s an absolute monster of a show.

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Thankfully, our British contingent, and Ryan in particular, were able to hunt out some of the cars and builds that might have been missed or that were happy to live in the shadows on social media. There’s some good variety in there too, and one or two slightly unexpected builds to go with them.

#6. Russians Know That Parades Make Everything Better

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This was another wild one from Vladimir Ljadov, whose multi-lingual skills help him to find the things that the rest of us don’t even know are happening. Random, wild, super and tuner car parade on the streets of Russia? Check.

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Which just happens to lead into an awesome car show that I wager most people never even knew existed either? Also, check. There’s a lot more to Russian car culture than dash-cam videos on YouTube, and I feel like it’s an area which we need to spend more time exploring in 2020 and beyond.

#5. 100% Auto Live: Celebrating Car Culture In The Netherlands

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Another category, another IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER submission leading the way. While I’m sure most of us were drawn in by the the presence of the original The Fast and the Furious movie cars in the featured image, there was also a lot more to this event than our favorite cheesy car movie.

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From inspired JDM builds to the type of Euro cars that you would expect from a show in the Netherlands, it was another example of an event with a little bit of something for everyone. There were some cameos from the UK car scene here, too, who came to support their Dutch friends.

This was the 16th year of 100% Auto Live, and I’m sure it will only continue to get better with age.

#4. Players Classic: The Evolution Of The Perfect Car Show

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Nope, not a mistake. Players Classic does indeed feature twice in your list of the most viewed event stories on Speedhunters in 2019. If we were to base this on cumulative views of every story from each event, this might just have taken the top spot overall, but I think that by featuring twice on this list, it almost says more.

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This was the first story we ran from the event, and the fact that you still wanted more afterwards shows how popular it is. There’s a lot to cover here each year, and I don’t think it’s entirely possible to show you everything, so I can only suggest that you start making plans to attend in 2020. I can promise you that you won’t regret it.

#3. 100 Photographs From Turbo Kurve

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There’s something slightly awkward about this story from Wörthersee ending up third on the list of best events of 2019, because technically this wasn’t an event. It was a normal afternoon at Wörthersee, which as some of you might know, isn’t really an event either.

It’s just something that seems to happen every year before the annual GTI Treffen, which is an official and sanctioned event. I can’t tell you if the last one is very good or not, because despite going to Wörthersee regularly, I’ve never stayed long enough to attend the actual event.

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Confused? Don’t be, because this is basically what happens when thousands upon thousands of car enthusiasts visit an area to just hang out, chat, admire each others cars and enjoy the scenery.

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I do get some enjoyment from the fact that this is basically a free public carpark, and it puts on a better show than some other shows around the world without even having to try. What a time to be alive.

#2. Europe’s Best Model Car Show In Jabbeke

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I had an inkling that this show would perform well on Speedhunters, despite it not featuring any actual, real cars. It wasn’t all that long ago that a story from Japan on an RC event was the biggest story on the site of the year, bar none, so we know there’s an appetite for automotive collectibles here.

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The one great advantage to a show like this is that these scale replicas don’t take up a lot of room, so you don’t have to walk as much to check them all out. Although you might require some spectacles or a magnifying glass to really appreciate what’s before you.

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These aren’t just box-opened diecasts put on display, there are hundreds and hundreds of modified and custom builds, including some with their own dioramas, too.

It’s like Speedhunting, just smaller.

#1. Raceism: The Best Car Show With The Most Questionable Name 

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“I ThOUghT tHis wAs SpeEDHunTERs, NoT sTanCEHuNterS.”

While it really isn’t a show with a great name, something which basically sounded good when translated into English, without people being fully aware of its meaning (hence the addition of the ‘e’ to the show’s name recently) it doesn’t take away from how good this show is.

In fact, Poland’s Raceism has quickly come from nowhere to be one of the standout shows on the calendar.

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Like all of the other great shows, it excels because of both the variety and quality of cars on display. As I’ve never attended, I’m not sure how they go about filtering the applications or organising the cars on the day, but the resulting static show is massively impressive.

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While shows which focus primarily on fitment are often criticised in the comments, this was the most viewed story on Speedhunters in 2019.

In fact, the number of critical comments of Raceism versus the number of page views barely even registers as a fraction of a single percentage point.

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This basically means that this show was enjoyed (or at least tolerated) by 99.997% of the people who chose to come to read about it. If there was ever a reason to follow the silent majority, this might be it.

Our next category is the one that maybe matters most, our Top 10 Car Features of 2019.

Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com

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