When I got my license, and subsequently my first VW back in 2012, I didn’t realize it was the beginning of the end of a lot of facets of the VW community that originally got me hooked. The community was quickly moving away from VWVortex and onto Facebook, and the VW shows that at the time I had only seen in photos and videos, were getting out of control.

I lived close to Helen, so from 2013-2015 I took day trips up to the show just to see the cars. I was seeing cars I had only seen in Vortex build threads or old show photo threads and I had never seen anything like the quality of some of these cars. All that time spent looking at the cars was great but I always knew that I was missing out on a big part of what made those shows so great: the community. Every year I went to the show hoping the next year I would have friends that were into VWs like me and we could rent a cabin and make a weekend out of it like thousands of people were doing every year.

In 2015, the weekend got too out of hand, the show got moved to Savannah, and the 2016 show didn’t feel anything like the old show weekend in Helen. Despite finally having VW friends by this time, it felt like the dream of a cabin in the mountains with friends with cool cars in a town filled with amazing cars was quickly dying.

Within an hour of Alpine VAG Fair being announced near the end of 2018, everyone I knew was talking about it. All my friends were texting about it, plans were being made, and we were all looking through AirBNB and VRBO for the perfect cabin before another group found it first. Nobody ever questioned whether they could go, we all just knew there was nothing that could make us miss this show. And for six months we looked forward to the show and our expectations kept growing but Alpine VAG Fair turned out to be exactly what we had all dreamt of for years. We still don’t have the cool cars we hoped for but I couldn’t have imagined a better weekend with friends.

I arrived in Helen with one friend around midday Thursday and when we topped the hill and saw Helen and VWs everywhere we looked, the excitement grew. The two of us spent the day walking aimlessly around Helen pointing out cars to each other that we remembered from Vortex build threads or old show picture threads; we were finally seeing builds that we hadn’t even seen pictures of in years and didn’t know were still around. Some of our friends arrived later in the evening and we went for dinner before calling it an early night back to the cabin.

Friday was the big day for all of us though. It was the day for all the meets and the day the rest of our friends arrived. Surprisingly they left on time and were able to make it early enough to meet us at the MK5 meet and we got the chance to see all of the other meets together through the rest of the day and were just overwhelmed with amazing cars all over the place.

The cars are obviously a huge part of the show but what really brought the experience together was the people, and Friday night stood out as one of the best times I had all weekend. Everyone that we knew who was in Helen came to our cabin to cook out and spend time together. Part of me wishes I got the camera out during it but instead I’m just glad I was there in the moment as we all had dinner on the deck with old friends and new and a view of the mountains during sunset while the driveway was filled with Volkswagens. I don’t have any pictures to look back but it’s a memory that’ll stay with me for a long time.

Saturday was the actual show day. Instead of being on the large old show field that felt separated from the town, Alpine VAG Fair was placed in the middle of town and there were about 100 fully build show cars handpicked by the show organizers to be on the show field. The show itself was great for seeing all the best cars in Helen in one place but even the organizers said that the Saturday show wasn’t meant to be the event of the weekend and all of the meets and events through the weekend were what made the experience just like old times. The rest of Saturday was spent less car-focused for us and we spent time doing other things around Helen like playing mini golf, having a drink at the new Tantrum Brewery, and visiting the strangely creepy cabbage patch museum.

Sunday morning we got some pictures at the popular photo spots around Helen before we all said our goodbyes and drove our separate ways home, already excited to see each other next year at the next Alpine VAG Fair.

We all had high hopes for the return to Helen and the organizers of Alpine VAG Fair absolutely exceeded our expectations and created a show and an experience that we all dreamt of when we were all too young to rent a cabin and stay the weekend and only experienced day trips or old videos. This event was absolutely the highlight of the year and if you missed it this year, be sure to make the drive next year as it felt like a return to the true VW community and not just a car scene.



























