This year’s Emerald Coast Cruizin Event was a great as ever. This weekend was full of interesting and beautiful cars and thousands of people out enjoying the shiny metal and wonderful weather. I was talking to the event promoter this morning, and his head was still spinning from the whirlwind of activity over the weekend at Frank Brown Park.
1.) Thousands of show cars
This year’s attendance was consistent with years past with just under 2,400 registered show cars at the event. “There were much more than that cruzin’ the streets of Panama City Beach,” remarked Robert “Rakes” Parrish, event promoter. “There are tons of people that just bring their cars down to cruise around, that don’t enter the show.”
There were all types of cars, from classics restored to their like-new look and feel, to highly modified street-rod muscle, to rat-rods to highly polished new muscle cars.
2.) People in town from everywhere
Parrish reported that there were visitors from as close as across the bridge to as far away as California. The three biggest states represented were Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, but they had registered cars from Wisconsin, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Iowa just to name some of the more distant states.
3.) One guy bought 11 cars AND a hotel
Yea, you read that right. There was a high-roller in town buying up all he liked and it was said when he was done buying cars at the auto auction, he went down the street and bought a hotel that was for sale as a foreclosure. We’re still waiting for more information on this, but if anyone else knows anything about this, let us know in the comments!
This event brings a certain kind of person to our area, during a time when the weather is typically impeccable. Many of the people that come down to this event fall in love with our area and return again during the tourism season. There is no doubt this event is great for our area.
We were there on Saturday, here is a taste of some of the cars that were at the event.
PCBDaily 