Imagine the chaos of your local cars and coffee — full of modified BMWs, Challengers and Mustangs — but an order of magnitude greater. Now, put that in one of China’s wealthiest cities, with thousands of tuned cars, and that’s the GT Show. It certainly didn’t fail to deliver on the expectation of radical sports cars and off-roaders, but the participation of a few drivers who wreaked havoc on public roads outside the show forced organizers to get involved, asking people not to engage in “dangerous driving.”
The GT Show Organizing Committee put out a statement after a driver crashed an Audi A4L Quattro into a guardrail near one of the main venue entrances, endangering his fellow motorists and a crowd of onlookers in the process:
The A4L allegedly belongs to a 20-year old driver who lost control of the car during a procession of modified vehicles. There was a bit of water on the road at the time, but that didn’t stop the young Audi driver from trying to go sideways in a sick drift. And in a way, the driver succeeded:
But he wasn’t the only driver who drew negative attention for the rest of the enthusiasts at the show. As friend of Jalopnik Ash (@AshinChina) shows, there were a handful of other incidents, including a scofflaw doing wheelies on his bicycle leading police on a merry chase, a Bugatti Veyron that was involved in a fender bender on Suzhou’s wet roads, and a Ford Mustang GT somehow posing a fire hazard to a building:
News outlets also reported that one Porsche 911 driver sped away and escaped local authorities during a traffic stop, presumably initiated to discipline or question the pilot of the Porsche 911 for dangerous driving practices.
In the end, the GT Show 2023 organizers put staff outside the venue, holding signs that read “No Dangerous Driving,” as well as publicly condemning the behavior of reckless drivers. Organizers also had to ensure spectators that the car show would go on, and that vendors would be returning for the final day of the event.
These vendors include world-famous aftermarket brands like BBS, Brembo, Eibach, Enkei, HKS and Koni, among many others. Basically, most of the brands we would associate with gnarly auto mods and car tuning culture. It’s not good to assume, but when thousands of car tuners are gathering in one place, it might be a good idea to lay down strict ground rules before the show.