Rev@UCI, UCI’s official automotive club, held its first collaborative meet of the year at The Hills Hotel in Laguna Hills on Oct. 5.
Rev@UCI held the event in collaboration with Sunset CarWatch, a car enthusiast initiative founded by UCI class of 2019 alumnus Louis Katayama. UCI students, alumni and members of the surrounding community gathered with their cars for a night of conversation and fun.
Vehicles ranging from classic Mazda RX-7’s to European exotics — such as Ferraris and Lamborghinis — entered in droves to meet the crowd of students and car enthusiasts.
A C7 Corvette arrives as the night begins. Photo by Simon Jeau / Staff
Founded in 2019 by former UCI students Thomas Wong and Harman Sahai, Rev@UCI’s name was inspired by the duo’s car supply company Rev Auto. The club has since exploded into a club with a large online presence with 4,000 Instagram followers.
Rev@UCI hosts open-to-everyone meets at the Diamond Jamboree shopping center’s parking structure on Tuesdays from 8-11 p.m., as well as periodic UCI affiliate-only events on Thursdays at the same location.
“Typically at Diamond Jamboree, there will be at least 300 attendees attending our weekly Tuesday car meets,” President of Rev@UCI Jiachen Yan said. Yan shared that the club “is growing fast” and that it had gathered “a lot of followers from the UCI community” at this year’s Anteater Involvement Fair.
President Jiachen Yan’s 1994 Mazda RX-7. Photo by Simon Jeau / Staff
Vice President Frank Nguyen said that the club has a “long-standing relationship” with the Diamond Jamboree Plaza, and that it intends to eventually host meets on-campus. ”
As the night at The Hills continued, sounds of lively chatter and burbly engines filled the crisp evening air. The rumbles of a Porsche 911 GT3’s flat-6 engine echoed past as it pulled into a nearby spot. The owner Hwashang Li, a UCI alumnus and computer science grad student, spoke about how cars had been his “childhood dream.”
“We liked to collect Hot Wheels, like the small toys, back when we were kids.” Li said. “As you can see here, I have anime wrap on my car, because I like anime.”
Hwashang Li’s 2015 Porsche 911 GT3. Photo by Simon Jeau / Staff
“This is actually my fiance’s car,” third year business economics major Cynthia Liu said. “I drive a stick-shift Honda Civic. This is my first time coming to the meet, and I honestly think it’s really cool. Saw a lot of cars. I don’t know the names, but they look awesome!”
Originally, Liu was on the fence about attending events like tonight’s meet.
“Even if it feels intimidating, everyone is probably just as nice and looking forward to making friends, so I think that’s the biggest thing you have to tell yourself. No one’s gonna judge you for what car you have or what you’re driving,” Liu said.
Cynthia Liu poses for the camera in her fiance’s Ford Mustang GT. Photo by Simon Jeau / Staff
The theme of this kind of difficulty — to come out and engage with others — echoed in conversations with Co-Vice President Andres Cordon, a fourth year chemistry and biology major at UCI.
“I’m double majoring right now. So it’s kind of a pain to balance so many different things. And you kind of just get into a thing where you are just like always at home, or always in the library,” Cordon said. “But with this club, it kind of forces me to come out on Tuesdays or Thursdays or whenever we have K-1 speed events or something like that. And I think it’s helped me a lot. It’s talking to people, you know? We’re all social creatures.”
Like Cordon said, Rev@UCI isn’t just about the cars; the club also hosts social events. Yan mentioned other, non-car meet events the club hosts.
“We just had one [event] at the beach last Friday,” Yan said. “It’s our first social event since Rev@UCI was originally founded. I made the decision to host social events. Because you know, besides cars, we’re still humans. We are students from UCI, we should connect with each other and a beach event is a great opportunity to let us have fun, enjoy the beach and sit down and talk about something other than cars.”
Cordon also encouraged students who have yet to join to come out to a weekly meet.
“You don’t need a car, you don’t need to know anything about cars to come to these meets! All you need is just to be willing to spark up a conversation,” he said.
For those without cars, Cordon said to contact Rev@UCI via Instagram: “We’re willing to bring you out here and take you back home just so you can come experience a nice little park and chill!”
A Mazda MX-5 is seen leaving the lot. Photo by Simon Jeau / Staff
Simon Jeau is a Campus News Intern for the fall 2022 quarter. He can be reached at sjeau@uci.edu.