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Ask any gearhead and they’ll tell you that the car show circuit has been dwindling down for some time now. It’s easy to blame the venue, but isn’t that just an easy scapegoat? Isn’t it really up to us, the participants, to help make the show circuit great again? I get it, not everyone can afford to go to x-number of shows every year, but if we really want the big shows to stay, the ball is in our court.
Where else are you going to find a Viper on display with an old custom van?
I asked a friend if he was going to the Spring Fling this year, and he said, “Nah, there weren’t that many people last time so I’m staying home.” It appears that attendance is one of the deterring factors for not going the following year, and it seems rather self-defeating.
What kind of logic is that? If we choose not to go, for whatever reason, then we can only blame ourselves when the shows start closing shop. So we talked to a friend who has been putting on big car shows for a long time, and we asked him what his take is on the show circuit.
MATS – The Mopar Car Show At The Vegas Speedway
Phil Painter is known by many from the various car shows he promotes, and he’s primarily known by the Mopar crowd as the face behind the Muscle Cars at the Strip (MATS) show. But Painter has had to make some changes over the years because he didn’t want to see the show fade away – or disappear altogether.
Since 2003, Mopar owners all over the country referred to MATS as the biggest Mopar party in the west. For a while, it was simply called Mopars At The Strip, and the Las Vegas event brought thousands to drag race, swap parts, find deals, make friends, show their cars, and party every night of the three day weekend.
Diversity. If they were all the same, you'd be bored with it after the third car, maybe sooner. The gray 'Cuda (top) was one of our favorite cars that we recently featured.
Eventually, it was simply called Muscle Cars At The Strip, for legal reasons. That was the first big change, and this past April brought another change that made some Mopar owners uncomfortable: for the first time the show would be open to basically any musclecar – old and new – and not just Mopars.
Initially, there was some grumbling across Mopar-centric forums. Hell, even I fell into that groove a little bit myself. Mopar owners felt almost cheated by the fact that one of the larger Mopar events in the West was making room for the competition. But is it really competition, or camaraderie that brings us all together in the first place? No matter where you hang your hat, musclecars are still cool and they aren’t going to go away.
A Change To Muscle Cars At The Strip
When you’re a show promoter, like Painter, you have to be able to see the bigger picture, and it’s quite possible that many who are familiar with this event don’t even know what the bigger picture is all about. We’ll try to explain some of that bigger picture to you, and ask you what you would do if you were the show’s promoter, but lets get to some of the details first.
Long story short, Painter had to remove “Mopar” from any advertisement or show promotion and the popular MATS show adapted to Muscle Cars at the Strip. It was a legal issue, but Painter says that’s all water under the proverbial bridge.
For Painter, though, this show wasn’t about a logo, or money, or anything else. It was about bringing a group of people together that otherwise might not get to meet each other. It was a reason to take your car across a couple of state lines and party with other die hard gearheads from across the country.
When we spoke, he asked me what I thought was the biggest draw at Sturgis every year in South Dakota, and he used that as a point of reference to what he is trying to accomplish with MATS. “Those people are there because they all have one thing in common,” he told me. “They love motorcycles, and not just one brand. It’s a huge draw every year. That’s what I’m trying to do, to bring people together who all have a passion for musclecars.”
Musclecars aren’t about one make, one style, or even one decade, and Painter knows that all too well. “When I first started this event, there wasn’t a new Challenger,” he said. “But look at these cars today. People who think their old Barracuda is fast would be surprised if they haven’t driven one of the modern musclecars.”
Painter is not just a promoter, he’s a true enthusiast and has been around cars his entire life. He sees the writing on the wall and we must embrace the fact that we are in the middle of a great thing right now. We need to accept that this could be the last time we see the Big 3 battle it out with musclecar wars for a long time to come.
Go straight, buy go fast parts, turn left then right.
New Beginnings To Keep Things Alive
I asked Painter about the addition of the modern Mopars last year, and he schooled me a little bit about making hard decisions. As we said before, the show was dwindling down, and he told me that his investors weren’t going to participate if he continued putting limitations on the event.
How many people never would get a chance to ride in a Hellcat or a Viper with a professional driver? -Phil Painter
“And now,” he continued, “with the Ford and GM guys coming out to the show, they also get the opportunity to see what it’s like to ride in a Hellcat or Viper.”
The concept resonated with me, because although I own a Mopar, I enjoy all musclecars, both old and new. That’s not just because of the day job, mind you, it’s always been like that with me because I like variety. I know there are some die hard Mopar owners who will never own anything else; it is okay to like what you like – but you also have to live and let live.
When was the last time a Ford or Chevy guy could get tossed around with a professional Hellcat driver?
Painter struck a chord, and I was reminded about something the late Goodguys Rod and Custom Association founder, Gary Meadors, had said to me a few years back. I had asked Meadors why he made the decision to include newer cars in his Super Sunday events.
In previous years, the shows were limited to 1972 and older, but that started changing at a few of the events. Meadors explained to me, “We gotta get that guy parked inside here and let him park by a guy with a ’32, and he’ll start understanding how cool older cars are. And then we’ve got a new convert.”
I shared that with Painter and he told me, “Now you can see what I’m trying to do here.” It made a lot of sense to me when Meadors said it, and it rings true with Painter’s version; the light bulb went on and yeah, I get it already.
Be Unique, Just Like Everyone Else
The bottom line is that we’re not going to convince people to enjoy our cars if we continually shut them out. But we have to let them enjoy what they like, and we have to open the door a little further and let them get a leg in. When they’re more comfortable, perhaps they’ll start coming by more often, and they’ll look at us as friends, not competition. And that is what the whole MATS event is about: to bring people together again, not to keep us separated because of an oval, bow tie, or pentagon. (we’re not giving up the Pentastar, regardless of FCA).
Painter told me, “People had nothing but good things to say about the event, about Mopar owners, and the cars. There were some Ford and Chevy owners in the past who wished someone would have a MATS for them.”
That’s when he realized that the best thing to do was the invite them to the show, rather than keep them in the stands. And it was a decision that, so far, is working rather well. “We know change is hard,” Painter said, “but nothing is more constant than change.”
If you didn’t get a chance to attend MATS earlier this year, you missed out on the final run of the Hemi Under Glass Barracuda with Bob Riggle behind the wheel. It was history in the making, and we were there to see it, and to talk with Bob about his car, and his career. This is the type of entertainment that you can expect at this venue, along with an improved autocross, and three days of drag racing, vendors, and a swap meet.
Not only were we there to witness the final run of a legend - Bob Riggle in his Hemi Under Glass Barracuda, but we were able to call him and talk about his experience with Jay Leno, and to talk about his career.
In case you’re wondering, the plan is already set in motion, and MATS is going to be back again for 2017, and yes… we will be there again. If you’re going to go to any big show next spring, you don’t want to miss MATS. We haven’t been told who the special guest will be, 2016 will be a hard act to follow. But leave it up to Phil Painter and I’m sure it will be something equally as cool. After all, he is a professional – and he’s proven that he knows what he’s doing.
So if you were faced with the same predicament, where you’re investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into an event, are you going to ride down in a sinking ship knowing there was something you could’ve done to keep it afloat? Nobody is going to try to convert you to the dark side, but we need to learn to accept the fact that the musclecar era was the greatest part of the the 20th century, and we’re going through another one right now as we speak. No matter where your preferences lie, without the “Big 3” we’d all be stuck with the Model A Ford – and it could be any color we wanted, as long as it’s black. Are you going to make it to MATS? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Meanwhile, enjoy some of our favorite pics from the 2016 MATS show.
