History:
It all started with a TV commercial.
Volkswagen was running a New Beetle ad that showed a silver NB zip onto the screen, spin in a circle until it looked much like a flying saucer, then zipping off the screen. The tag line was "Reverse Engineered from UFO's".
Meanwhile on the New Beetle Internet chat list, the suggestion was made that we should have a meeting of all the little silver space pods. The destination? Must be Roswell, since that's the only place we've ever captured a UFO. So the owners of silver NB's jokingly said that they'd meet up in Roswell.
But the other colors wanted to come, too!
After having some fun with the topic, it turned a little more serious. Why can't we have a show in Roswell? What's there? Would it support this kind of invasion. All we knew about Roswell was what we saw on the Discovery Channel ... a gas station, a quansit hut, and some aliens.
So in March of 1999, a group caravaned to Roswell to check out the situation. The group wasn't met by aliens as expected, but unexpectedly meet with a host of hotels and community groups that were anxious to help make the show a reality.
In June 2000, the first R2K New Beetle show was held with great success. Cars came from all over North America (and Japan) and the success has continued.
Volkswagen of America has been impressed with the strength of the show, and has come on board to support and promote the show through their dealerships. 2004 saw the show featured in a Japanese magazine, with a special DVD recorded at the show. In 2005, Disney joined up to give the show participants a sneak preview of the newest Beetle realted movie, "Herbie Fully Loaded". The 2006 show was featured on Car Crazy TV on the Speed Channel, and received a great write-up in Hot VW's Magazine.
This year's show is number 9, and there's no sign of slowing down. The community of Roswell works as hard as show organizer David Allen to make the event a success time after time.