Cars & Coffee Bahrain

Thanks to a friend who attended this a couple of years back, I have now become a loyal attendee of this event, Cars and Coffee Bahrain. Yes, there are car meets in Kuwait, but one that’s open for the public to attend, regardless of your car, without any bias towards any car owner is hard to find. Cars and Coffee Bahrain is probably one of the top tier Car Meets there is. I can’t emphasize this enough, its all about the car enthusiasts and not the car you are driving. Cars and Coffee Bahrain is usually held on a Friday morning, so what I would pack my things ready for the trip then heading to work. Once I’m done, I’ll hit the road for a four to five hour drive to Bahrain, check in the hotel and get the car prepped for the car meet in the morning.

This is my third time attending and taking part of the meet. First two times I attended, with my Abarth 595 Competizione, which in itself was hilarious. This time I was excited, because I purchased my Renault Megane RS Trophy during the pandemic and couldn’t really take part in any car meets. Trust me when I say this I was waiting for the announcement from the Cars and Coffee Bahrain’s social media account, and honestly I did in some way annoy them asking them when it was going to happen.

Last time I went, the trip and my car were sponsored by 20 Grams Coffee, but this time I decided to reach out to other companies that I have grown to admire there work more and more especially through the pandemic years. Firstly I contacted Dietrich watches, and was honestly surprised when they agreed to be my partner throughout this trip, sending me a watch that I had been waiting for, the SD-1, if you want to know my thoughts about the watch click here. Normally I would take two watches with me so I can switch it up a bit, but this time around I wanted to give the SD-1 my undivided attention. Which in a way made me fall in love even more with Dietrich. I also contacted Vanquish Vehicles Detailing, which are located in Shuwaikh to see if they were willing to get the car ready for the trip and event, which they agreed to, and may I say they hit it out of the park. Blacked out all the chrome on the car, while vinyl wrapping the roof and the middle part of the rear spoiler giving it a more aggressive look and tinting the windows of the car to make sure that I wouldn’t get too bothered by the sunlight coming in during the drive to Bahrain. Lastly I contacted Kaizen, they’re this new iced tea place that sells these amazing iced teas. Most places use syrups and such to get the iced tea flavor, but these guys no, they use actual dried fruits and tea leaves to get the refreshing and delicious drinks. What shocked me the most is that all their drinks are ZERO sugar and ZERO Calories. These drinks were beyond refreshing and taste heavenly.

This time around I decided to take Thursday off and head out me and my wife early to get to Bahrain a bit quicker, but thanks to covid restrictions things kind of took longer than normal and we ended up driving out of Kuwait roughly at 2pm. The roads in a way did get better in Saudi Arabia, not completely better, but it was better than I remember it being. We got to our hotel at Amwaj Bahrain at around 6pm, checked in and headed to the Dragon Mart to see what’s going on there. After that we dropped the car off to get washed and got some Nando’s while it finished. The next morning we woke up early had breakfast at the hotel, then I headed out to the Bahrain International Circuit to attend what I was waiting for, Cars and Coffee Bahrain.

The car meet started at 8am and was supposed to end at noon, I left the hotel at around 7:50am and drove from Amwaj to the Bahrain International Circuit, spotting other car enthusiasts on the way who were obviously on their way to attend the meet. Spotted a couple of Hondas, and a couple of Toyota AE86s! I got there at around 8:45am and was shocked, that even though the meet had started for less than an hour there were over a hundred cars were already there. Decided to park next to a couple of Mini Coopers, who as soon as I backed into the parking space told me that they were waiting for a friend to park next to them, so I moved and parked next to this beautiful Toyota Yaris GR, it was the epitome of a pocket rocket.

With the car meet slowly growing in attendance, it got to the point that there were over four hundred cars, parked and looking beautiful. Some of them honestly caught my eye and made my heart swoon. There was this beautiful canary yellow bagged Honda S2000, the fit on it was beyond perfect. A 1960’s clean and I mean CLEAN Toyota Corolla, and fresh red Porsche 356 Speedster. More important than the cars there were the people there, I can not emphasize this enough, every time I attend Cars and Coffee I always end meeting new people who honestly end up becoming life long friends. My Renault was the only the car in attendance from Kuwait, and the only Renault there too. It being a mix of track car and daily driver a lot of questions were asked, especially about how it felt on the drive to Bahrain from Kuwait. Seeing kids running up to cars, and getting excited at the sound of someone’s exhaust will always make me smile, especially when it’s the sound of your exhaust, because that little kid was once me. Met a couple of fellow car enthusiast who I enjoyed just talking about cars with, shout out to @Shift_Mootark who took the picture of my car above and @Snowcat_srt.

I left the meet at around 11:30 because me and my wife needed to get our PCRs done, so we could head back home the next day. After than we went to Attic in an AlAdilya Manama for lunch. The Greek restaurant was a surprise, my little brother suggested it, and it was awesome! After that me and my wife went shopping and went to get some Bahraini sweets for a families then called it a night. The next morning we checked out and headed out to grab breakfast at this beautiful place called Pattis in AlKhobar Saudi Arabia. A big delicious breakfast and head on our way back to Kuwait.

All in all, Cars and Coffee Bahrain is always going to be something that is dear to my heart, and attending it is something I always look forward to. Meeting new people, seeing people’s builds, and just being surrounded by amazing people. Do I suggest attending it at least once in your life? Yes, no doubt YES!