HRE Open House 2023

Words by Tim Wong

Apparently, it’s time for the annual HRE Open House again. Since the “fall” of Facebook, it been pretty hard to keep up with what events are going on. People are just not using anymore and I get why, but there’s no place for people to post events. Instagram is not a good alternative for posting events, but for posting photos is still pretty solid. I probably would have not even know about it if someone didn’t post about it just before the event.

Bugatti Chiron at the O Gara booth

The last time I was here was back in 2019 and I feel like this event has become…not my scene anymore. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but the event has changed and feels like it caters to a different demographic. To give you some perspective, I covered this event back in 2012 when the crowds that show up now probably weren’t even allowed to drive yet. I’ve always kind of felt the HRE Open House was like a event for normal people to come out to see some really interesting stuff that isn’t too common. There was a Maserati MC12 which may have been the only one that stood out considering there’s only 62 of them.

This year, the lot which is normally open to everyone was completely shut off to people to paid for the “car show” and the other half was block off for Gold Rush Rally. One side, there’s a a lot old faces I love seeing again and catching up and the other side felt like I was walking on a set of a teen drama about rich kids driven by ego. It’s…different now. On the plus side, I was really looking to use this as an opportunity to test out my new lens, the Samyang 35-150mm. HRE really did an amazing setup inside this year because I absolutely dug where they setup the cars. The juxtaposition of these fancy sleek exotics next to the industrial equipment and machinery in the background was fantastic.

There was also a new wing that open up. It looks to serve as a showroom for cars and wheels along with a big warehouse for storing their flow form wheels. There was a big open space with a Porsche display which I bet would work as a nice photo area too.