My first experience into the venerable 0808 gatherings.
A little ironic, may it be. One of the first to show up, and one of the last to post anything about the meet in question. Well, what is it?
For those who don’t know what this “0808” is, to put it shortly, 0808 is a local customary time for car enthusiasts to meet together and celebrate Singapore’s National Day, a day before. A little custom stemming from the 2000’s until now, cars gather in groups and round around a devised loop around Orchard, as a “showcase of speed”.
While 0808 isn’t outlined specifically by one hosted event (These I would guess since I’m incredibly fresh in the scene), I made the decision to participate in k4ge’s 0808 car meet.
Here’s a little preview that I’ve compiled for an earlier Instagram post about the meet.
So, how was it in general…
While I could want to resume my usual narrative that is tying what photos I have with what happened at the time, I’ll just quickly spare the details.
I turned up around 8.30, and with these early images, it was quite peaceful. Empty, if you will. I wasn’t the very first per say, but I did think nobody was to turn up.
Just need to wait a bit as the event timing drew nearer. I was quite early after all, so naturally I’d have to wait a while for more people to show up.
I don’t know who was manning this but, next time please do watch where this thing is going. Yes, you did hit only my tyre’s sidewall (to my knowledge), but a hit is a hit.
Cheers, thank you.
Sorry, this little incident aside, back to the usual photo spam.
Right around this timing did the mall shut the lights off.
Night and Day meets are literally are a night and day difference. To compare and contrast the types of cars that appear in both times of the day, its quite different. Of course, the daytime ones are way more civilized, something I personally have come to appreciate a lot more than the rowdiness nature of the night ones.
You could ask why I even turned up. Apart from friends (with their friends) showing up, although I don’t like the nature of these meets, I still attend them since if anything, they unite like-minded folk together, bringing an active location for such folks to meet in person and chat.
Though frankly, this one was incredibly hectic. Supers and hypers at its peak flying down the front stretch, motorcycles doing rev battles, big jams (which you’ll see later) made it less of a conducive environment especially for chatting. I’d know this, as the other folks I were with could attest.
But I’m missing the point. This is all part of car culture after all. Additionally, it is a meet celebrating 0808.
If there was one car that captured my interest the most, this was one incredibly stock Type S S2000. Props for keeping it in such clean condition.
Given 0808’s setting of car gatherings and this meet causing one or two (Well, more) noise disturbances, traffic police were already in-site very early on. 5 minutes into the meet. There never was a shutdown though.
I think about SiR EK4 hatchbacks from time to time. This with silver paintwork is probably the spec I would take.
A nighttime meet no doubt brings the “underground” aspects of car modification. Please let neons be more mainstream.
These photos are yet to capture how busy the event was so far. But you could guess by the influx of cars flowing in and the amount of spaces available that it was starting to get incredibly packed.
Right about now you can probably start to see how packed the venue got.
I would have wanted to leave around this time, but well so did everyone.
Eventually, the folks I was wish opted to walk down to the nearby Macs and get a drink (I didn’t account for leaving as late as I did, neither did the others), by now the whole location was messy; the beforementioned cars flying down the exit straight, bikes revbombing, and the jams.
Convoys exiting and more, we sat out for a looong while. At this point, we were all wondering to ourselves, “When, really, will it be right for us to go back?”
Some two hours after we considered leaving. I think by now it was 2am already.
I’ve not hit that stage in my life to want to stay up for extended periods in the night outside, but I know it is spirit of 0808.
I accidentally joined a group whilst bringing a friend home. If you were behind me (iirc it was a SLK), I do deeply apologize for slowing you down.
So that’s my 0808 concluded. For a start, I suppose this was alright as an introduction to car stuff here. The CnK meet will be covered in a subsequent article.
Now, since I value other peoples’ photos of their cars above mine, I’ll just drop the rest of my photos below here.
Thanks to Inui, Jeff and Seanan and his group of friends for accompanying me and having a chat.
And to you readers, thanks for taking the time to look through!
~Linus
