Late last year, while attending an event with our friends and collaborators, CounterKultur, we came up with the bright idea to bring a new event to a classic iconic venue in our scene. While the Campbelltown Fire Co Grounds are really nothing more than a couple of big grass fields intended for carnivals, fairs, and sports practices – it had played host to Volkswagen car shows for the past 20 years or so. Until the past show organizers decided to move onto new venues. But being heavy in the community, we knew the people were in need of a return. We couldn’t be more happy with our decision to be the brands to bring it back for the people.
We had our friend Josh from Freshy Entertainment on hand to wander around and take photos of the event. Josh takes his trade seriously, and he does a great job. Which was a good thing, because the event had an ever bigger and better turnout than we could have ever imagined – and most of our staff was busy all throughout the day. The event grew so large, so quickly that we ran out of our original allotted space while there were still multiple lanes of competitors waiting in lines to get onto the showfield. Luckily this wasn’t the first rodeo for most of our crew, so we were able to adjust and re-adjust again… and we didn’t have to turn a single car away. While we weren’t able to get a final car count, it is safe to say that we packed well over 450 cars onto 3 different showfields.
We received great support from the community, with some great event sponsors and a ton of cool vendors on the midway. The midway was also host to some hand selected builds that we chose as the lines of cars rolled into the venue.
Past Campbelltown events held a strict “VW/Audi only” policy. But we’ve got love for all car enthusiasts. While the ongoing dispute lives on throughout the community – about whether or not “outcasts” should be allowed on the showfields at VW/Euro vehicle events – we decided that we knew we could pull off a laid back, roots based event that doesn’t discriminate. Yes, we promoted this event heavily to the VAG community… but we’ve got plenty of friends and customers who drive other sorts of cars. So we gave them a place to show off their builds as well. And contrary to what the internet says, they didn’t all act a fool or cause any sorts of problems all over town. As a matter of fact, they blended in quite nicely and nobody seemed to mind including them in the day’s festivities. We even had a Mustang on the showfield that didn’t mow down a bunch of innocent bystanders.
Then again, who is going to complain about seeing amazing builds like the R32 GTR (pictured above) that Boosted Beauties brought out or this 37 Ford Coupe (pictured below) from the Lucky 7 Rod Shop:
Speaking of great partners, we must show love to the guys at InnFab and 4EverKustoms for providing what we believe may have been the coolest trophies ever made. Our brands had collaborated on a pretty simple design that resembled the show’s logo. But we couldn’t have dreamed the level of awesomeness that they took these things to. InnFab produced and machined them, while 4EverKustoms donated the BBS lips and did the polishing and powdercoating. Congrats to the select few of you who got a chance to take one of these home with you!
Around lunchtime, we got invaded by the Ruckus and Grom gang. Our homie Denis and his crew had stopped by to check out the event and to remind us that they had told us to get ready cuz the streets were talking about this event… and it was going to be huge. They were pretty much spot on in making that prediction!
What was most important for those of us behind the scenes though, was the grassroots atmosphere of the event. Swap meet vendors started showing up bright and early and some pretty awesome timeless Volkswagens turned out to show support.
We love Rallye Golfs. Here’s one that Ryan from RMiller Auto and his wife Alicia just had imported. We were proud to have her make her debut on American soil at our event.
Adam Whary’s “One Last Ride” made an appearance on the midway as well. This is a very cool and meaningful project that serves as a tribute to a good friend of ours in the scene who we recently lost. RIP Cory BabyBones. You’re still on our minds, homie.
InShane Designs decided to bring millions of dollars worth of display vehicles for his booth – where he teamed up with RMiller Auto to do a live wrap demo of a New Beetle that ended up being transformed into a rolling football helmet by the end of the day. Let’s face it… brightly colored Lambo’s and Ford GT’s are appealing to anyone – even if they’re not car enthusiasts.
At the opposite end of the midway, and the opposite end of the spectrum, Mike Perez brought out the infamous SpeedWarhouse “DeathKart”. Insanity is always a crowd pleaser.
You know our friends at eJudged had to roll thru in the Party Bus:
Unfortunately, event sponsors Nine1Forged wheels couldn’t set up their booth as planned… but they still brought out this amazing widebody Bimmer. Mmmmmmm.
With hundreds of amazing builds on display, you may think deciding who takes home Best Of Show honors would be a challenge. But from the moment this amazing RHD Corrado, which we first saw at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, made its appearance, it was pretty much game over already. We were honored to have Steve and the crew from Legacy Innovations bring her out for her “competitive” debut. The car had only previously been seen at SEMA and the Philly Auto Show. This served as the first shots fired for the 2016 show season. VW owners should take notes the craftsmanship and attention to detail that went into this one-of-a-kind, yet still so amazingly clean and subtle build.
The first ever Spring Breakdown at Campbelltown was a huge success for us. We can only hope the community loved it as much as we did. We thank you all for your support and overwhelming us by turning out in huge numbers, packing the showfields all day long. We can’t wait to give this one another try… but we will have to seriously consider whether or not the iconic Campbelltown grounds can contain an event of this size again next year. Stay tuned. In the meantime, don’t forget that we collaborate with the Counter Kultur fellas each year for our annual event at Knoebels Amusement Park as well. KnoeDown4 will be held on September 11 in Elysburg, PA. KnoeDown3 was a blast and featured over 300 cars of all makes and models. But we’ll see most of you in the meantime, here and there in the community… and we’ll also be throwing an event of our own. The JunkFood Meet will be a more intimate event. Held on the banks of the Susquehanna River in downtown Harrisburg, the event will feature some hand selected invitational vehicles as well as some general registered vehicles in the mix with a cool food truck festival. That happens on June 18th so stay tuned for more info – or watch out for us to hand you a vehicle invitation at future events in the region.
In the meantime, please enjoy the rest of the Freshy Entertainment photoset from this past weekend. Cheers!
