The police helicopter flies overhead, demonstrating its remarkable agility with a series of banks, turns and spins to the staccato beat of its rotors. On the ground, Highway Patrol vehicles with two wheels and four sit side-by-side accompanied by a number of officers.

Such a scene suggests trouble on this sunny Sunday morning, but there are smiles all round and Victoria Police doesn’t often bring along examples of its fleet from decades past on operations.

The reason for the police presence, and why thousands of people have set their alarms earlier than usual, is Highball Cars and Coffee 17. As the name suggests, it’s the 17th running of the Sunday morning car show at the Bosch headquarters in Clayton, Victoria, which donates all proceeds to Victoria Police Legacy.

A car show with a cause

This is a charitable not-for-profit that supports the families of current and former police or protective services officers in the event of their passing and it’s an organisation that Highball is proud to support: “It’s a charity we align with very much, because unfortunately there’s a lot of road trauma because of cars and the police members that have to go through this, we try to support them in a way and give back to the community.”

From a small car park to one of Australia’s biggest car shows

From humble beginnings, Highball has grown into one of the biggest car shows in Australia, with more than 1000 vehicles converging on Bosch for each meet, but it runs with the same well-oiled precision as many of the beautiful machines that attend.

“It’s actually gotten better the bigger we got,” says Martin, one of the organising team. “We started the Highball Car Club because we want to be not a branded car club. We like people that like cars and as long as you’re a good person and like cars you’re one of us.

“We then started a cars and coffee together with a few people in the city eight years ago and it got a bit too big and one of our members works at Bosch. They had redone all the grounds in Clayton and they usually don’t work on Sunday, so the former president of Bosch, Gavin Smith, told us ‘Hey, why don’t you use a car park?’. The first one [in] the little car park in the back, [we] sold out of coffee and donuts in like 30 minutes and it basically grew from there.”

Highball’s strength is its diversity – there is no gatekeeping here. Cars of all ages, all ethnicities and all values share the space, heavily modified and perfectly preserved alike. What’s most remarkable is the turnover from show to show. Melbourne is a relatively large city, but it seems impossible that it could contain so many special cars. It’s like a trawler dipping its net deep into the ocean and coming up with a completely different catch each time.

Every event has its own colour

A new initiative is to dedicate the main front lawn to a different colour at every event, ensuring a wide range of machinery on display. “We have the front lawn, which used to be the slightly prime spot” says Martin. “The problem is people said, ‘Hey, how can I get there?’ and when it’s full, it’s full.

“So we thought, how do we do it a bit differently and the most democratic way is doing it by colour. If you do it by brand or country or year or price, nobody’s ever going to be happy, but if we go by colour, everybody gets a chance.”

The Mazda stars of the show: RX-7 SP and CX-6e

Two appropriately hued cars that make the grade are the iconic Mazda RX-7 SP, the actual Triple M-liveried racer that won the 1995 Eastern Creek 12-Hour, and the all-new CX-6e electric SUV.

Any half-knowledgeable car enthusiast will be drawn to an RX-7 SP like a moth to a flame, but it’s a credit to the open minds of the Highball community and the pulling power of the CX-6e’s styling that it constantly attracts a crowd, people hopping aboard and giving their friends video tours on their smartphones.

As a beloved automotive brand, it’s not surprising that these aren’t the only two Mazdas present. MX-5s and RX-7s of every generation are dotted around the grounds, often huddling together in little pockets, but a Luce Wagon and R100 sit happily on the lawn in their white paint, a vivid yellow RX-8 in another area representing the modern rotary.

The owners who have caught the Mazda bug

Billy’s rebuilt RX-7

Billy has the Mazda bug badly. He was first bitten by an NA MX-5 but, hankering after some more performance, he found someone with a 1997 Series VII RX-7 who was looking for something lighter and purer, so each party drove five hours north and south respectively to conduct the swap.

Billy’s bright red Series VII is fresh from a 14-month rebuild, the 13B twin-rotor being bridgeported and converted to single turbo along with a number of other supporting modifications. During its extended time off the road, Billy did what any self-respecting RX-7 owner would do – he bought another one, a Series VIII Spirit R that has now moved into the workshop.

Three friends, three NA MX-5s

Stephanie, Jacob and Anisa have a lot in common. All drive NA MX-5s, the three cars sitting together with their pop-up headlights open in wide-eyed fascination at the hustle and bustle around them. All three are also substantially younger than their chosen steeds, clear evidence of the first-generation MX-5’s growing cult status among young car enthusiasts.

Stephanie describes what drew her to Mazda’s iconic roadster: “I wanted to step into the scene with something that was friendly and had a long way to go with it. It’s really easy to make it my own. I’ve learned a lot with it and I feel like every MX-5 has its own personality, and you can put your own into the car as you go.”

Jacob’s rationale was similar: “I always liked the cars and wanted to buy a fun weekend car and it’s now turned into a daily. It’s a nice car to join the scene and the community and it runs well, I haven’t had too many mechanical issues with it.”

Anisa’s attraction was a little more superficial: “Um, I bought my car because it has pop-up headlights. That’s totally the only reason why I bought it.”

An important ingredient in the recipe of friendship is common interests, and for Stephanie, Jacob and Anisa it was their shared love of the MX-5 that led to the three becoming friends and it’s the social aspect as much as the machinery that draw them to Highball.

A car park full of stories

Every car and every enthusiast here would have a similar story and it’s this collective consciousness that attracts thousands of people to a car park in Clayton. At ground level the variety of shapes and sounds verges on automotive overstimulation. To truly take in the scale and scope of Highball you’d really need, well, a helicopter.