With the summer officially starting last week, it was about time to get back on writing my festival-themed posts.
Despite living in a city where festivals take place often even when it's not summer, between June and late September, the city is home to tens of festivals and events of all kinds, which is also a good excuse to get outside the house more often than usual.
Therefore, as a person who constantly feeds her inner child, there was no way to spend the International Children's Day (June 1st) at home. That's how, when scrolling through events and possible options about how to spend this day, I've found out about UpsideDown Festival which is a pretty new festival in town and where you also need to get a ticket for, a thing that is not so common for the rest of events that take place in Sibiu.
UpsideDown Festival was born last year in May, but had great success from its first edition. So the event was repeated again in the same year, but this time in Constanta, a different city in Romania.
I remember reading and finding out about UpsideDown Festival when both the news and many TV channels were speaking about it, and after it had already taken place. So I made myself a promise that I won't miss the next edition.
If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that I'm a car enthusiast, and I participate in numerous car events. So, you might wonder what news I could see from the over 500 cars I've spotted at events so far?
Well, UpsideDown Festival is different from any other car event held in Sibiu. First, it's a festival of custom-tuned cars where you won't find a single car looking or performing the same as the others of the same model. But then there are also very interesting models of cars that are very rare in Europe. As you might guess, I'm talking about the American brand of cars.
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My boyfriend loves Dodges, and it's one of his favourite brands of cars, although we don't see ourselves driving one in this life. But when I got to stay so close and even touch the models present at the UpsideDown Festival, I realised that it might quickly become one of my favourite cars as well. It's just so hard to compare it with any other brand of car.
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Even if Dodges are not so easy to meet on the streets of Romania, things are a bit different when it comes to Mustangs.
During my stay in Bucharest (the capital of Romania), these cars could be seen pretty often, but they are not so common in Sibiu, though. So I was really happy to see some models present during the festival, which still brings a personal touch despite being more popular than Dodges are.
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There was actually another model that I spotted a bit later and in a different part of the exhibition, which is a Mustang Shelby fully custom tuned, parked next to a Cupra Formentor, what more could I ask for?
They also shared a similar car wrapping, so it made sense to be placed next to each other, but really now, they both are part of my top 5 favourite models of cars!
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The last American car that I am absolutely convinced you can't spot in Romania in a different context than being part of a car event, was a Hammer, yet what I like to call the father of all the other American cars.
Happily, the UpsideDown Festival is full of cars with a personal touch and it's easy to get lost between the vehicles while trying to think what might be the star of the edition, but I think we can all agree here that a Hammer is quite rare to see and it's imposing enough to let the car itself share what words can't. Because it's truly hard to find your words and make a description while sitting next to a Hammer.
And speaking of Hammer, I managed to snap a picture of its inside, but also some of the other cars seen during the event, which looked absolutely stunning and can already give you an idea of how much the owners of these cars love their vehicles.
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Another brand of car that I had a guilty pleasure for since I was a kid was the Mercedes G64 AMG. Sadly, I couldn't spot any of these during the UpsideDown Festival but only two Brabus models, which in fact are known for using the Mercedes AMGs as the base for their vehicles.
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Along with the Brabus, I could spot a few more Mercedes cars that you can see in the pictures from above.
It's incredible how, despite having Mercedes quite a common brand of cars in Romania there are still owners who manage to make their vehicles look unique in comparison with the rest. Yet a great demonstration of what a car enthusiast is versus a common driver who gets a car just to meet their needs.
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Another demonstration of a true car enthusiast was made on this Volkswagen Eos that at first I thought it was an Audi, but which was custom tuned so beautifully that I am sure it's unique in the world.
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The same applies to an old BMW car that was custom-tuned to perfectly mimic the one from Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Yes, I'm pointing this towards the gamers, especially. 😁
Photo_1749109994918.jpg (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/gabrielatravels/23uFeSw2SdMxpbwSeSCwbTWAuWLaDX9stZSoK89XmzQVsnoBsshCEWFnpyLFvJrK73GQr.jpg)
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Photo_1749013865566.jpg (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/gabrielatravels/23zS9HvBLCEPmzVTjvAk4Gg3iy2RaqZ9bXyM1MpNDndpSFDVjgw54okDutv4vjqdWpfhc.jpg)
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[![Photo_1749277738217.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/gabrielatravel