Lake Mills Cars & Coffee
Cars & Coffee, the original, started off as a way for a few friends in California to meet up and enjoy some caffeinated brews while chatting about their cars. Apparently, this was a pretty good idea, as it grew into an automotive mega-meet that would play host to droves of all variety of vehicle you never thought you’d be able to stand and stare at in-person. Since its inception, it has grown too big for its own good and had to dissipate due to not having a venue sizable enough to host it. The success of the original inevitably spawned many similar events and gatherings across the country, a few of which we’ve featured here. One such event popped up in the sleepy small town of Lake Mills, WI.
Just like the OG California get together, this rendition of Cars & Coffee started off nearly a decade ago with a few friends, members of the midwest R Gruppe, that simply wanted to meet up on a Sunday morning to sip coffee and talk about their cars.
Over time, word spread and the event grew.
…and it continued to grow. At one point, we’d be excited if we had 50 cars show up, but now it’s a common occurrence for there to be over 150 cars with our peak attendance being somewhere around 230 cars. It may not be as big as the west coast original, but I’m constantly surprised by the quality of cars that show up.
We’ve recently partnered with a group of great gearheads who run a non-profit entity known as Cheesewheel, Inc. With their help, we hosted our first ever Time-Speed-Distance rally to benefit our local Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Hopefully, we can continue to do more of these joint events in the future to get more people behind the wheel and out of the parking lot.
