British Invasion at Cars & Coffee

I received an email from the organizers of the Texas All British Car Days that they were planning a British Car Invasion of the monthly Cars & Coffee show at the Oasis on Lake Travis. Cars & Coffee is an informal gathering of car enthusiasts held the first Sunday of every month.

The plan was to meet at a shopping center parking lot near the show site and parade to the show and park together so there would be a coherent British Car display area. Unfortunately some scattered thunderstorm activity chose our meet-up time to drop some much needed rain and you can guess what that does to a bunch of open top roadsters. The parade was scrubbed.

But true to our "stiff upper lip" British heritage, many of us found our way to the show after the skies cleared, arriving one at a time but still gravitating to the same general vicinity on the show area. I'm told that I missed seeing a new Jaguar F-type as well as a Tesla that came and went before I arrived, but there was plenty of interesting iron to see.

They were kind enough count my MG TD replica among the British Cars even though the chassis is German, the batteries from China, the fiberglass body from Fargo ND, the Impulse9 electric motor from Chicago IL, and the Evnetics Soliton1 controller from St Petersburg FL. I suppose it's the spirit of British Motoring that counts.

Among the other British cars was this gorgeous and authentic MG TD. I think you can see the family resemblance here.

Here's a fabulous Morgan four seater.

Other British cars included a Triumph GT6, a Delorean (which is really Irish), a Jaguar E-Type, and a Lotus. Good company to be in.

There were plenty of late model Mustangs, Hondas, Mazdas, Subarus, and the like, but what caught my eye were the Muscle Cars from my youth like this GTO, 440 Plymouth, and Camaro SS.

There were also Modern Supercars like this Lamborghini and Gull-Wing Mercedes.

And of course the "Rod and Custom" crowd was well represented, too.

It was a lot of fun to see the other cars and especially to chat with their owners and others who wandered by to see the show. Again I was delighted at how open everyone seemed to be to the notion of electric conversions with an astonishing amount of knowledge on the part of some of the Hot Rod types. I think they've been exploring the idea and appreciated seeing an electric conversion come to completion. There's a real possibility that part of the future of home-built electric conversions rests with the Custom Car hobby.