.: Latest Breaking News
Check back here for the latest breaking news for the 2012 event ...........
October 29, 2012
EURO Auto Festival – “Another One in the Books”
This year’s show was hosted by BMW Manufacturing again for the 17th year. On display were 415 fine European automobiles and various other displays presented by our major sponsors – BMW Manufacturing, Michelin Tires, BASF Finishes. The People’s Choice award was presented to Don & Darby Wathne’s brass era1914 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. The Best of the Best winner was Gary Arrowood’s 1964 Aston Martin DB5. The other winners are list elsewhere on this web site.
EURO Auto Festival 2012 has come and gone with a flourish! The responses from the attendees and guests, both in person and in the days following have all been the same --- what a fantastic gathering of automobiles, the best quality ever, fantastic venue and what wonderful weather. The success of the event could not have been possible without the participation of the volunteers from the local European car clubs, Greenville Charter High School, American Red Cross (Kim Eller) and of course the EURO Board/Committee members (all volunteers). My personal thanks to everyone!
In an effort to keep the event fresh and interesting for our repeat attendees we have expanded our offerings. Over the past 10 years of my Car show director role and two years of my chairmanship, we have instituted some features that have had great success: EURO Build car program raised $70,000 for our charity, the crowd pleaser parade, the field loading procedure, assigned parking spaces, scoring changes to allow quicker turn around with award results, on-line registration, Friday tours, technical sessions, Best of the Best competition and the Hagerty Youth Judging program.
For many years as Car Show Director I enjoyed the thrill of classing the cars, laying the field out and meeting the owners as they came on the field. My wife, Betty worked in the back room managing the ballot tabulation and awards along with my other family members, Kristin, Leah & son-in-law, Jerry. For years my wife never saw the show field and I had to tell what car won, by telling her their numbers!!! I retired after the 2010 show and when our previous chairman left suddenly for personal reasons, my friend, Paul Ianuario asked me to step in as chairman, for just two years – I couldn’t say no. I love this event, the fellow EURO volunteers and the people that come to the show year after year. This year I called on a large group of car enthusiasts to step up and bring new life and ideas to the organization. Their level of inspiration for the event and the duties required to make it better in every way is amazing. For that reason, I feel comfortable in my decision to retire from the post of chairman and confident in handing over the reins to John
Budinich. Many of you know John from his involvement with Porsche clubs, BMW clubs and the “Cars & Coffee” gatherings. John’s organizational skills and ideas for the future will continue to lead the EURO Auto Festival along an exciting path.
Just to make things more challenging for John in 2013, the featured automobile we will be celebrating is Ferrari and its racing history. Keep checking on this web site www.euroautofestival.com for updates and have a great year. It has been a pleasure to serve.
Sincerely,
Barry Harms, Chairman Emeritus!!!
September 16, 2012
EURO Auto Festival – “The One Constant in Car Shows is Change”
The purpose of this section of the website is to keep you up to date on changes in the events and features of our EURO Auto Festival, therefore it is important that if you read anything on the site----the most important thing is the “Latest Breaking News”. It is similar to the crawler at the bottom of the TV screen, except it doesn’t have a flashing alert or moving images! Make sure that you read all of the articles so that you will be current and not miss anything at EURO.
Those of you that have attended in the past years know that Friday night is the time to catch up with old friends, review the housekeeping rules for the event and enjoy some good eats before a long day on the show field. In an effort to change up the features of the festival, such as technical sessions, road tours and enhance the reception with guest speakers we knew we may hit some speed bumps. While making final arrangements with our guest speaker, Dennis Gage of “My Classic Car”, he informed me that his schedule the week preceding EURO would be filled with work in the studio and he would not be able to attend our Friday night reception, optimistically called “Dinner with Dennis”. However Dennis and his crew will still be on the field taping and talking to car enthusiast.
Since our featured marque is the Mercedes Benz, it only seemed reasonable to look to our group leader, Bruce Dickey, for suggestions for a backup speaker. I am extremely delighted to announce that Bob Platz has agreed to spend a few minutes talking about Mercedes Benz, concours judging and restoration. Bob has signed up for most all of the events during the weekend, so he will be a busy fellow and we appreciate his offer to share his experience with us Friday night. I am sure that Bob’s expansive knowledge will be of interest to all in attendance.
Remember to sign up to register your car before October 6th at midnight to secure your designated parking space, to attend the Friday and Saturday night functions, to order festival apparel through the FBCC link and to attend the driving events at the BMW Performance Center. Same day registration will be available unless we reach our maximum of 400 cars but note that same day registration only allows the attendees access to the show field and none of the other pre-registered events!
Thank you for your support
Barry Harms, EURO 2012 Chairman
June 23, 2012
EURO Auto Festival – “Summer is Here, get ready to register”
Important things to note for all attendees of this year’s event:
The Saturday car show will be located again at the BMW Zentrum, just like the previous 16 years!
General parking for all attendees, guests and visitors will be available in the BMW general parking lot as in the past..
Embassy Suites (Verdae Boulevard) has blocked a number of rooms for EURO Auto Festival attendees, make sure you state your affiliation to our event when making reservations.
Registration has been delayed until July 1st in order to get the latest events listed.
We have a terrific apparel selection this year with EURO T-shirts and featured Marque T-shirts; make sure you tap on the FBCC link to order. We also have caps, wind shirts, golf shirts and all weather pull-over, all with the EURO/flag logo.
Dan McCrary has done a terrific job on the EURO poster in the tradition of past posters, sign up to get yours at check in.
The results of the questionnaire that you all received have been tabulated with the major results as follows:
1. In our effort to keep the show fresh with new items and events we asked for your favorite feature of the EURO. The overwhelming feature of the EURO was the friendly atmosphere, the opportunity to renew acquaintances, organization, positive attitude of the volunteers and organizers.
2. The response to our question about the future location of the car show was that the best thing about the event was the BMW Zentrum location. The beautiful grass, easy access, toilet facilities, foothills setting and casual atmosphere was the most noted. Do not change the location if at all possible.
3. The final most commented item was the great quality and quantity of the cars in the show. To that we owe to the folks that bring their cars to the event!!
The items that indicated some room for improvement were the vendor food choices and the variety of merchants in the big tent. Efforts are being made to change up the menu and enlist more automotive merchants.
Send in your questions so that we can address them for everyone in the FAQ section of the website.
Thank you for your support
Barry Harms, EURO 2012 Chairman
April 23, 2012
EURO Auto Festival – “Spring has Sprung- Planning has Started”
We have had our preview to summer heat and were not prepared to get out and drive our sports cars, now the weather has reset with a couple of cold spells to provide a chance to catch up with polishing, oil changes, detailing and leather seat treatments. That means only one thing – EURO Auto Festival is right around the corner. Trust me on this --- the football fans have already begun their planning for homecoming and tailgating. Here are a few of the things that you need to be aware of when planning your trip to the beautiful grounds of BMW in Greer.
First reminder is that the 17th edition of EURO will be hosted by BMW at the Zentrum and the factory associates are working seven days a week. The parking for guests and visitors will be addressed in upcoming news announcements – stay tuned! The host hotel will again be the spacious Embassy Suites Greenville Golf Resort and Conference Center with some minor changes to improve your festival experience. A three course table service banquet in the Palmetto Club will make for an intimate setting for the banquet, Corporate awards presentation, door prize drawing and our celebrated guest speaker. Arrangements have been made to improve the hospitality suite per your requests. Planning for the Friday night activities are still being confirmed with the intent to entice more of our local attendees to join in with the hotel guests (and maybe stay over for the event). All efforts are being made to keep the ambiance of the event while lowering the costs in areas where possible. The technical sessions will have larger seating capacity and the road tours more comprehensive and easy to follow.
Here is your warning!! You have been notified!! You snooze, you lose!!
Our honorary guest speaker is the famous (at least to car guys-gals too) “My Classic Car” host, Dennis Gage and his Speed TV camera crew. The crew is not as famous as Dennis, but they may make you and your wheels famous when appearing in next season’s special about EURO Auto Festival.
Our EURO date is the weekend of October 19-21, which happens to be the same weekend as Clemson Homecoming with Virginia Tech. Furman also has a home game. That being said, EURO has arranged for a block of rooms to be held at the Embassy Suites, so make your reservations as soon as possible, once the block is filled or expires, it is unlikely additional rooms will be available. The same urgency will go for banquet tickets, table seating space will be limited and we will be offering seats for “Dinner with Dennis”, stay tuned for details.
Registration will be available on the website in the month of May. One of the reasons for the delay is that fine tuning of the car classes is being done to allow our car show folks more information in grouping the models.
Our poster will be a knock out and I cannot wait to hear the response from you all. We are looking into T-Shirts with the poster art as well as an expanded apparel offering.
MEDIA BLAST: Catch the articles in Hemming’s, “Sports & Exotic Cars”----February 2012, EURO Auto Festival special; March 2012, Dean Stribling’s 246 Dino; May 2012, Hans Huwyler’s Austin Healey 100-6; June 2012, Jack Weller’s TR3. European Car magazine had a great article by Matt Stone our EURO 2011 guest speaker. More to come, get your subscription now.
Interested in being a sponsor, we have multiple levels including Corporate Award level – contact Linda Barber, euroregistration@hotmail.com
Finally, the next web news will have some results of the EURO questionnaire that Linda Barber, registration and communication manager sent out recently. Good returns so far, keep them coming. Send in your questions so that we can address them for everyone in the FAQ section of the website.
Thank you for your support
Barry Harms, EURO 2012 Chairman
