We’re up to ten Luftgekühlts now. Ten years of gathering air-cooled Porsches into interesting venues and seeing the social media posts fly.
I can already sense the question you might be asking: why should I care?
Whether or not you have any interest in vintage Porsches built between 1948 and 1998, Luft has been a force for good for the automotive world. Without intending to, Luftgekühlt creators Patrick Long and Howie Idelson created a car show that reinvented the car show.
The influence can be seen everywhere. Around the world, car events focused on cool venues and having a good time have popped up. Getting car shows out of parking lots and into places. Putting thought into the vehicle arrangements and photo opportunities, and facilitating conversations with new friends. The events that Luftgekühlt has inspired aren’t out-for-profit copycats, they’re people taking the lessons from Luft, and expanding them to their communities and their cars.
In a time when cars tend to get a lot of bad press, positive car atmospheres like these are a very good thing.
Also good? Events that make cars seem cool to the next generation of enthusiasts. Luft 10 was attended by thousands of people all ages, and millions more will see it on social media and online. My generation grew up with posters of Porsches from the 80s on their walls, and it’s quite possible that kids growing up today have pictures of those same cars saved to their Camera Rolls.
Luftgekühlt didn’t invent making cars cool, but it’s done a hell of a lot more for the cause than the Boomers blasting Dean Martin at the parking-lot cruise-in, or cars and coffee events that end with a police report.
In Germany over the summer, I attended a car meet at a winery on a Thursday night. Don’t worry — the winery was touting a new non-alcoholic red wine, a bottle of which was included with every car entry ticket. The organizers were young and most of the cars were old. Over a hundred cars of all varieties attended, and the event went late into the night. I spoke with a guy named Timo who had just bought a 1970s Mercedes W115 coupe. This car was older than him by at least 25 years, and he loved it. He told me the reason he had bought it was so he could attend events like this and be a part of this community.
Would something like that have happened without Luftgekühlt? It’s possible. There might just be something in the air. But as someone who has been doing car things for a long time, I think Luft has shown the way.