USC Auto Club holds first Auto Show

The USC Auto Club hosted USC’s first annual auto show on Sunday, featuring approximately 50 cars parked along Trousdale Parkway from a variety of dealerships and sports car clubs around California. The event was hosted in conjunction with the show’s sponsors, such as Audi of Downtown Los Angeles, Fiat of Los Angeles and Motor Village LA.

Aaron Bajor, a sophomore majoring in business administration and president of the USC Auto Club, was responsible for hosting the event alongside a team of nearly 20 others from the club.

Bajor founded the club last year as a freshman, and it has seen it grow to more than 300 students who also network with clubs at other universities including University of California, Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Irvine and Santa Monica College.

“We wanted to do something really cool, really big, and that not only provides for and invites the entire Trojan community, but invites other people to our campus as well,” Bajor said.

The show featured personal cars that belonged to students, such as modified BMW 335i M Sport and an old-school Porsche Carrera, as well as cars from dealerships, including Audi cars with their lineup of the A3, A4 and A5. There were also three Dodge Chargers and a variety of Fiat 500 models.

The show included many supercars, such as a volcano-red Aston Martin V8 Vantage, a white Audi R8 V10, a yellow Lamborghini Aventador and a titanium-gray Ferrari F430.

Bajor stated that the club wanted to put on a similar event last year, but they were held back by insufficient planning, time and money. This year, however, the club began publicizing the event through a variety of social media platforms as well as at car events throughout Southern California.

Andrew Palmer, a professional race car driver and sophomore at Pomona College, was also at the event. Last fall, Palmer won the world championship in the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo Series and also helped bring some of Lamborghini’s cars to USC on Sunday.

“I emailed Lamborghini of Beverly Hills since I have a really good relationship with them — I was actually driving a Beverly Hills car when I won the world championship,” he said. “They were happy to bring out an Aventador and an Aston Martin and put on a good show for all the people here.”

Even though the event fell on Easter Sunday as well as on the second weekend of the popular Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, many students stopped by to learn about the cars and take pictures.

Palmer said that the event was a good starting point for future shows.

“It’s low-key, but it’s a fantastic start, and it definitely exceeded my expectations in terms of people coming out,” Palmer said. “It’s really nice to have these awesome cars on display that don’t get to get seen all the time.”

Anokhy Desai, a junior majoring in business administration, said that she had been looking forward to the event and that the Aston Martin was her favorite car there.

“I didn’t realize that one of my friends was so involved in the Auto Club and that they’ve been planning this for a year,” Desai said. “It was so exciting when they actually made it happen as a Facebook event —— I was like, ‘I want to come to campus on a Sunday!’”

Bajor stated that the club hoped to hold events like this in the future.

“It’s totally the plan to have a second one,” said Bajor. “More than anything, it was a chance to get the word out on campus that our club exists.”

Bajor also hoped that the event would contribute to car culture on campus.

“I love just seeing [passersby] smiling — that’s what makes me happy and what makes the event a success in my opinion.”