[Anonymous]

OK, I’ve searched as much as I can, :confused: Is there a schedule for the “featured marque” vehicle listing? I know that not every weekend has a featured marque, but I’ve never found out until I get to C&C…

Help?

Thanks!!

Derrick

[Anonymous]

I’ll see if I can get John, Freeman or Tom to email me as soon as something gets added to the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Okay, some interesting news. Apparently when groups request the corral for a featured marque day, there are usually one or two guys from a club or forum that make the arrangements. Sometimes they get a good turnout of volunteers that show up early and help the Ford guys get everything together. They’ll help place signs and stand in the driveway to make sure everybody parks where they are supposed to. Other groups make the phone call, show up at 7 and take off whenever they get tired of the meet.

From what I’ve just learned, members of the first group go out of their way to show their appreciation for the help from Ford, from the guys who allow the show and do the work to make up the signs and make sure everything flows smoothly. The second group doesn’t have a clue about what it means to be good guests and shows no appreciation. Unfortunately, there have been far too few of the former and far too many of the latter since the show started. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely there will be organized featured marque days from now on.

I guess we are all guilty of taking the Ford guys for granted to a certain extent. We go every week and just assume the lot is empty and there isn’t much involved in parking the cars and walking around for a few hours. We don’t really see how much work it’s been taking to keep things going without a hitch. Keeping the Irvine PD and The Irvine Co. happy hasn’t been easy. Neither has getting up at 4 to be there to open the cafeteria and set the signs every week. The guys who have been doing this every week are top level Ford execs and they do it for free. They love to help keep the gathering going after Crystal Cove was shut down, but it gets to be less of a thrill when nobody shows any appreciation.

I guess this past week was a prime example. The forum that organized the rally and requested the extra parking and corral went out of their way to thank everybody involved — except Ford and the guys who took care of all of the details at C&C. Might have been a simple oversight, but that must really rub the team the wrong way, especially from a group of Ford enthusiasts. Granted it was up to the organizers to point this out, but for all the people in the group, you’d think at least one of them would say thanks to somebody at PAG. In case anybody didn’t notice, Ford even had an extra dozen or so employees at the show helping with the traffic. They put in a lot of effort to make sure everybody was happy.

And it sounds like there could have been an additional 20-30 cars at the show, but many of the members chose to sleep in and/or show up late, assuming there would be a spot for them whenever they wanted to come in. As most of us saw, the rest of the lot was overflowing and many regular attendees had to park in the Mazda front lot or even in the spectator lot out back because of the spaces being held for the GTs. Some of you may have also noticed that some of those spots were empty all morning.

I’ll get off my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant, but it gets me upset that there was so little gratitude shown. Of course this was just one side of the story, but from what I’ve heard, other groups have shown similar disregard for the efforts of the PAG people. How unfortunate. I doubt this will mean the end of the show, but it’s doubtful there will be any future featured marque days. Perhaps groups will just try to show up early and reserve a row for their buddies, but it doesn’t seem like it will be the same for future gatherings.

[Anonymous]

That isn’t really a rant. It’s pretty crappy that it happened..

Makes me feel like I should get there early and help out even though I’m not helping with a marque 🙁

[Anonymous]

Having said all that, I guess there might have been a couple of events already booked. Triumphs are the featured marque on Saturday. I hope there’s a good turnout and that everyone shows their gratitude to John Clinard, Freeman Thomas and the gals up front.

[Anonymous]

I talked to Freeman Thomas about the possibility of Mini being the marque next year for our Mini Meet West 08 event. He said that it wouldn’t be a problem so long as we had plenty of volunteers. I hope that we can do it for our national event. I’ll make sure that everyone parks in a nice straight line also.

[Anonymous]

If the weekly C&C crew needs help in specific area or day, I’m sure we can organize a group of volunteers through this forum.

[Anonymous]

i am sadly disappointed to hear that, going to c&c and just seeing a rainbow of a variety of ferraris or lamborghinis is just a site. if i was able to drive, or had a car worthy of the lot i would be out there every week helping you guys out. (too bad i have neither). just again i am kinda sad, at least the last featured car,ford gt, was great:) since i really dont have rides to the show anymore i was hoping to only go on featured days, now ill just have to HOPE 😎 i dont miss anything worth while.

eek im probably the only one here with the whole ride problem situation* probably the one of the few who cant drive yet on this forum:(:(:(:(:mad:

[Anonymous]

if they stopped featured cars then just last saturday they had a featured marque of Volkswagen so hopefully they did not stop having a featured car. was anyone aware of this featured marque prior to actually going to the show? (the amount of VW’s was not at all impressive though, and there still vw)

[Anonymous]

@marshallchang 1218 wrote:

if they stopped featured cars then just last saturday they had a featured marque of Volkswagen so hopefully they did not stop having a featured car. was anyone aware of this featured marque prior to actually going to the show? (the amount of VW’s was not at all impressive though, and there still vw)

I hadn’t heard about this in advance, but Tom had said a couple of clubs were already on the calendar when the decision was made to stop taking new entries for the featured marque salon. The VW turnout was decent and there were a couple of really rare and unique vehicles in that group, so who knows.

[Author]

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