MR2 Meet / July 2023
Written on July 24th, 2023 by sudoyashi
A Saturday meet with the MR2 crew in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Table of contents
Roll call AW11, SW20, ZZW30
- AW11 / Generation 1: 5
- SW20 / Generation 2: 12
- ZZW30, MR-S / Generation 3: 3
- Total: 20
Josh, why were you even there? You don’t even have an MR2!
Honestly, any of these cars would look sick on a Polaroid.
Yeah yeah, I know lol. I’ll get one, maybe. I dunno. You see, the way my bank account works…
Mike was generous to invite me out to the meet since I knew a few of the guys from a previous meeting and SCCA. I figure why not take photos and send it to them, it’s the least I can do. What made it even better is getting to know more of the owners. It’s when you meet people like minded people, people that will go to all kinds of lengths to wrench out till 3am and skip lunch or dinner just to get your shit done, hanging with anyone with the same kind of mentality that’s a good feeling right there. Sorry I may have forgotten your names but I’ll probably recognize a face. All around, the MR2 guys are a good crew.
Frankly, I’m new to the Hawaii car scene in general because I only got the Volkswagen running basically last year and didn’t start taking it out until this year. I was wrenching on that shitbox for almost 2 years until I was really able to drive it. Even then, the community is incredibly small for Golf MK1 guys, so it was really nice to be able to hang with a crew even if we don’t have the same car. But I’m sure if I hang around them long enough, I’ll convince myself I need a 3rd car. Will I keep the Golf at the same time? Only my bank account will tell.
Why were you taking their pictures? Are you even a photographer?
Nah bro, that’s too much work for a job LOL. I like it when my car is photographed, so why wouldn’t others? It’s always nice to have your car’s picture taken haha.
I used to work in the photo lab developing film back in university and own too many cameras for one person, I might as well use what I got. Using my Polaroid 600 has been my current go-to format because I don’t have to develop and print anything; I can do it one step! Case in point, I gave one to Johnny, one of the owners that checked on me when my Volkswagen’s radiator blew back in Waikiki on our last cruise. Come to find out afterwawrds, when I was with some of the guys at the cruise and then they found out the Cab broke down, they were almost going to turn around and help me out. That’s crazy to me. I called the tow truck already so everything was good. I wasn’t expecting something like that until Euler mentioned that to me and that’s dope. Polaroids are an easy way to show my appreciation for other people. Not cheap on it’s own, but also a lot cheaper than buying someone else a drink LOL.
Polaroids don’t last forever; the print won’t last without further protection from dust and UV. But the dated and aging nature of the print is part of its charm. Polaroid film costs about $2.25 a shot, but again, they’re worth it. Maybe that’s why I don’t have more car parts.
Unfortunately, my beat-up digital camera didn’t fare that well that day! It has a massive scratched area, and I keep forgetting about it, so it causes the left part of the image to get a blurry extra light, making a ghosting effect on the final image. I try to avoid the sun when possilbe, but sometimes it’s inevitable.
Most of the meet went by smoothly, lots of talking story and hanging out. Afterwards, Mike started to line up the gang. He was arranging everyone together with a few of the other guys and once the cars got were parked, it looked pretty dang good. Everyone wanted to take a picture. Why not, the setup was solid. The trouble was that there were so many cars, you couldn’t see everyone’s sick whip.
But thanks to the help of a fellow stranger named Lance in his blue Toyota Tacoma, he offered to let us stand on his truck bed to get a better viewing angle. Really appreciated that he offered to let us get a top-down view.
His son eventually got to look at the cars up close and I hope him and the family had a blast seeing the MR2 group out there. I know I did.
Gallery and download
I didn’t get to meet all the owners, but I got to know a few. Showing face in any group is worth something because your time is everything. Hopefully, the owners will find their pictures someday, and maybe I’ll get to meet more of them and know their cars soon. If you wanna download the pics, click here or copy and paste: https://minhaskamal.github.io/DownGit/#/home?url=https://github.com/sudoyashi/sudoyashi.github.io/tree/gh-pages/assets/img/mr2/july2023.
Fellow SCCA homie and his 3rd white gen
AW11 front shot
Blue ZZW30 with the AW11s
Yellow SW20 on VS-KFs and Magenta SW20. I really hope that’s Magenta LOL
My favorite brand with the three palms.
The MR2-Guy’s AW11, aka J’s Garage
Toyota throws shade on the white midship