Every year in the month of May, a crowd of the most eclectic auto enthusiasts descends upon anundisclosed little German-style town in the hills of Northern Georgia. Alpine Volks Fair (AVF) is a gathering of Volkswagen Auto Group owners - VW, Audi, and Porsche drivers bringing vehicles from any and all eras. Hundreds of these cars in all manner of build styles park up around this small mountain community and, well, chill. That’s just it: they just kinda hang out and admire each other’s handiwork. For the better part of a week, AVF hosts themed meets based on specific cars - Air cooled, Mk. 2, Audi B5 chassis, etc. - around town, all culminating in the final “best of the best” show on Saturday. All of this generally goes off without a hitch. There’s very little illegal buffoonery that typically goes on, and what does occur is almost immediately called out and ostracized for not being a part of the group and defying the spirit of the gathering that’s taking place. The only reason this event can occur every year without it succumbing to utter chaos is due to the very nature of the enthusiasts that attend AVF.To understand what makes Alpine Volks Fair so special, you have to understand how this specific group of auto enthusiasts see themselves and their cars. When thinking of car culture today, it’s perhaps easiest to see the absolute worst aspects of it right off the cuff. People (usually kids) doing something stupid and endangering regular people for social media clout has kinda become the modern face of enthusiast culture for a lot of people. It feels like everywhere you look, sanctioned events have to crack down on behavior or get shut down completely due to how this new wave of clout-chasers posing as auto enthusiasts behave. AVF is no stranger to this. As a matter of fact, AVF was effectively born from the ashes of SoWo - another Eurocentric car event that ended up being permanently shut down due to the headass actions of a select few. That event now exists in the same category of events as H2Oi and the recently deceased Slammedenuff: Gatlinburg; shows that are now better known for the stupidity of the non-car people it draws than the actual sense of automotive camaraderie they may have tried to inspire.

In order to curb the chaos, AVF’s organizers recently made the decision to make their event an invitational. Only verified owners of VW’s, Audis, and Porsches are allowed to be a part of the show and be part of the perks. No show badge? Pay for parking everywhere you go and make sure you aren’t in any of the many reserved spots where event cars are meant to be. Hell, the official AVF Instagram page is set to private and will not let you follow unless you’re a part of the VAG community. All of this secrecy around the event is a key part of ensuring that the multi-location week-long nature of the show remains untainted by foolishness. The organizers work closely with the city council, going so far as to offer discounts for those holding AVF registration lanyards. This sort of cooperation is a key component in why AVF ends up working so well.

Aside from the incredible location and the cooperation of the locals, what really makes Alpine Volks Fair so unique and so interesting of an enthusiast event is the nature of the cars and their owners themselves. This specific group of German cars inspires a sort of cult-like devotion that’s unlike almost any other owner-base in the industry, separate even from the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Vw’s, Audis, and Porsches are a strange breed of car, especially the first of that group. They’re quirky, not always reliable, and often difficult to work on. They can be hard to find parts for or to diagnose, and so building a network of people who share in these experiences is crucial. This isn’t uncommon among different car communities, but the VW community in itself is a very unique microcosm of car culture. There’s a shared vibe among VW enthusiasts that is totally separate from any other community - to the point where even other Euro-car enthusiasts think they’re weird nerds. While Porsches and Audis are mostly also impressive performance cars, VW’s are generally more on the “low and slow” side. There are exceptions of course, like the R32 Golf and the Golf R, but for the most part VW ‘s kind of pride themselves on being chill. You don’t really see people in Volkswagens out hooning, even if they have the performance to do so. VW people just don’t really go in for that. The VW crew is, for the most part, a separate beast from the general mentality surrounding car culture. Drinking German beers in the sun and looking at one-off wheels or super-rare body components is kind of all they need. Making an entire series of multi-category events in multiple places across a city for these nerds to look at weird German cars and all the various build ideas within? An absolute haven.

One of the great tragedies that struck me while I was hanging out at Alpine Volks Fair was that this specific group of car owners are kinda the only types of owners anymore that can be a part of this sort of multi-era event without it becoming yet another disaster. In many ways, I would consider VAG owners, especially VW owners specifically, to be one of the purest groups of automotive enthusiasts in today’s culture.

Thought piece written by Justin Munday.
Find his other work @ https://jackalsinthecourtyard.home.blog/