Radwood NorCal – Neon, Fanny Packs, Oakley Blades and Cool Cars!

Dust off the fanny pack and find your neon colorblock windbreakers, it’s time for RADwood NorCal! The car show at Oyster Point, just south of San Francisco, was more than just a car show.

From RADwood’s website, the offical explanation of what unfolded last weekend is “a celebration of ‘80s and ‘90s automotive lifestyle. The car show that blends period correct dress with automotive awesomeness.”

Just walking around at the show you’ll see it’s true, this an event that involves more than just epic cars from decades past. Plenty of people showed up in themed garb and we wish more shows captured the essence of an era like this.

While there were plenty of the standard 80s and 90s cars here from around the globe like old Bimmers and funky Porsches, we were also blown away by some of the exotics that showed up.

One of the rare prancing horses to show its face at RADwood was this Ferrari F40. Getting up close to a car like this is always a special experience. The F40, produced from 1987 to 1992 is an insane icon from this time of car building. The twin turbo V8 has an unmatched rawness that, after the 90s, we seemed to lose for a bit.

An even more rare F50 was also at the show and judging by the bugs on the front of the car it looks like it’s a Ferrari that actually gets driven. It’s great to see these out and about, seeing as how only 349 were ever built.

Continuing with the rarity theme, parked up next to the F40 was a Porsche 959. Only 292 of these cars ever came off the assembly line and even more amazing was the fact that this car was Federalized and plated in California, of all places. The owner said that the car was running a different tune and a number of exhaust and intake modifications were made to make this happen. We wonder if Canepa had a hand in this build as they’re the world’s foremost 959 experts.

Further down the lawn was a Ferrari with over 500,000 miles alongside other models from the Italian marque.

Perhaps even better was this Ford Cosworth RS. While in a different realm of (un)affordability than the rare Ferraris, this is also a car you won’t spot in the wild very often. It’s also a car that became completely diluted in the years that passed.

We also noticed a formidable combination of third generation Camaros which included an RS, SS, and the famous ‘91 Trans Am series-winning Duracell car. Like the exotics, seeing a car like this parked in a lot is just awesome.

Cruising around the show, there was a beer garden, food truck, and loads of other rad stuff from the 80s and 90s, as promised. A dance-off even broke out during the trivia contest. Our friend with the white sweater was bested, losing out on the prize – a Hot Wheels car. High stakes just look at his disappointment!

It was great to see everyone out at the show with their kids and introducing them to cars that they never got to enjoy firsthand. Of course, plenty of these icons from a couple decades ago can be found dirt cheap these days, so there’s still a chance for them to get behind the wheel of one someday. While a bit too soon to consider these cars real classics, RADwood NorCal really is an awesome celebration of an era full of many lackluster cars.

But it was a great reminder that there were plenty of incredible things, cars and beyond, that came from this era. Whether you were alive then or not the eighties and nineties will always be with us in the back of our minds, for better or for worse.

RADwood Norcal Giant Photo Gallery!