I read Matt's kind words yesterday about Eastern-European car enthusiasts and thought I should explain to you what makes it great over here. Apart from these people being just the best, of course.
Since I don't know exactly how many people read Jalopnik in and around the Hungarian capital of Budapest, I asked our friend Nino Karotta to use his Wolverine powers and 14,000+ Facebook followers to make Jalopnik's first European car meetup happen. And he did a fantastic job, as always.
But what makes these events great in Hungary in the first place is the diversity and general attitude of the owners themselves. People care about their rides around here.
You might not see as many supercars on the streets of Budapest as in London or in Monaco, but there's so much more out there in return. Like a brave adventurer driving a Fisker Karma for yet unknown reasons. Or all the imported Teslas that replaced a few German Autobahn missiles even if we barely have enough charging stations. To make sure emissions are kept at a normal level, there's also an old, boxy Chevy Blazer with a 6.2 diesel parked on the side, because of course that works in a European city!
So, when a Brabus G-Wagen is overtaking the question mark that is the never-sold-in-Europe Geo Metro cabriolet, I don't even raise an eyebrow.
If you add all the perfectly original or either outrageously customized communist cars, the best (and worse) of Europe that got carefully restored, the beaters that also got turned into something special because zero fucks given and all those strange cars that could make it here somehow in the last three decades from Japan due to the lack of import bans, you realize this is one of the most colorful car communities in the world, even if it doesn't have too many members with the sort of money Jay Kay operates with. Although I do hear rumors about very well hidden car collections with rare Ferraris, Koenigseggs, Paganis and whatever you can think of that are worth many million dollars.
But garage queens don't matter, especially as long we can do all this from significantly less: