Quote:
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Originally Posted by awesome
i might meet you at shell and head up if my girlfriend lets me. hahah unfortunately that's the way the cookie crumbles
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Are you serious??? BUUUUUHAHAHAHAHAHA... Dude, man up!
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Here's the info for Towers:
Tower Shops (Southeast of 595, off University)
1904 S University Dr
Davie, FL 33324
Map:
Here's an article about the weekly meet/ car show:
Tower of power
South florida’s most popular weekly car show draws hot rodders and tuners alike.
By Joanie Cox
photos by Josh Prezant (
link to gallery)
Jamie Hernandez stands beside his silver Dodge Intrepid, cracking jokes with his friends and chatting about cars and women. Twenty yards away, Tony Nguyen snaps pictures of his black Infiniti G35. A few rows over, Rochelle Anthony is showing off her 1962 Chevy Bel Air, her pink poodle skirt and her 9-month-old daughter, Mia Bella, whom she's rocking in her arms.
"This is not just a car show," Hernandez's friend Chad Romano explains of the scene taking place around him in Davie's Tower Shops plaza. "It's a hangout."
Since 1992, scores of car lovers like these have been coming Friday evenings to the Tower Shops, located east of University Drive just south of I-595, to proudly display their automobiles, many of which boast modifications totaling thousands of dollars. Romano, 25, has put close to $40,000 into his 2002 Dodge Neon and is gearing up for an $8,000 paint job. "The project never really ends," he says.
The Tower Shops car show was founded by Michael Lepurage II, the late president of the classic-car club Florida Street Rods. After Lepurage passed away in April, his son, also named Michael, took over both the car club and the show.
"My father started the show because our club needed a place to meet and show cars, and it kind of just grew from there," Lepurage explains. "Now, we're carrying it on in my father's legacy."
Sid Morra, vice president of Florida Street Rods and one of the coordinators of the Tower Shops event, attributes the show's popularity to its strict anti-racing ethic. "We give the kids a nice, safe place to come," he says. "We keep the rowdy ones out. That's why we have four police officers here."
Morra says the show's participants are expected to abide by several simple rules: keep the music down, act like gentlemen and ladies, and come in and leave like normal people. "We put up with no violence at all," he continues. "Since we lease the property for the event, it's considered private. If you do something bad here, you're going to jail."
In 13 years, Morra says, the show has gone off without incident. Davie Police records show that officers only have been called out to the car show three times between 2000 and 2002, to respond to reports of disorderly conduct, disturbance and burglary of an automobile. "If we hear the word race, they're out of here," he insists. "What they do on the street, I can't control."
Romano has been attending the show for the past 10 years. His friend Hernandez, 30, has been a regular for even longer than that. Both men are members of Team Friction, a car club that started in September 2003 when Hernandez, Romano and three other friends decided to form a team without any official leadership. The club now includes 15 members. "Car enthusiasts used to be more separated," Hernandez says. "But now, everyone seems to be into it."
He describes his obsession with his car as a full-time job. "We're not in it because we want to be Fast and the Furious wannabes," he says. "This isn't just a hobby. It's pretty much our lives."
Although Hernandez, who owns Tuner Solutions custom car shop in Hollywood, admits to having wrecked five of his cars over the years, each accident has allowed him to rebuild the vehicles so they're better, stronger and faster than before. "If we crash 'em, fuck it," he says. "We rebuild them."
Romano's girlfriend, Christina McLain, 20, regularly attends the Tower Shops show. She is one of the few women who do so. "Girls rotate through this club like dirty underwear," she says. "I'd say 60 percent of the girls in this industry are in it because of boyfriends or husbands."
If the gender makeup of the show is fairly static, the diversity of the cars more than compensates for it. "You get trucks, classic cars, Japanese racers: The variety at this show is great," McLain raves. "With the car shows, you really get a mixture of everybody. It's like a family. They all have an understanding.
"This is really the only show people come to religiously."
The Tower Shops car show takes place 6-10 p.m. Fridays at 1986 S. University Drive in Davie. It costs $1 to park, $5 if the car is for sale.