Ten Years of Donk Day: Ree's Miami Show Runs on Wet Paint, a Good Squat and an Open Gate

Ree S. remembers the first donk he ever saw. He was leaving elementary school in Miami, and after that he saw them everywhere. He never figured he would own one. "At that time, a donk was really known as a street hustler's car," he told Highsnobiety. Then his friend Evans, who was no hustler, got one. "When he got his, I'm like, 'Okay, my dog got his, now I got to get mine.'"

Two decades and a few cars later, Ree runs one of South Florida's best-known donk gatherings. On June 21, 2025, his Donk Day show marked its 10th anniversary, and Highsnobiety sent photographer Alexis Gross to shoot it. Her pictures and Ree's own words, published July 1, 2025, are the best look yet at what a decade of Donk Day has become.

From box Chevy to four-door

Ree, 43 when Highsnobiety talked to him, grew up in Miami's Little Haiti and traces donk culture to the city in the 1990s, spreading outward from there. Like a lot of owners, he did not start at the top. He began with a box Chevy, the 1977 to 1990 full-size Chevrolet that sits a rung below the real thing in donk hierarchy. He bought his first four-door donk in 2009 and lost it to rust. He bought a second four-door in 2011, and that is the car he still has.

The definition matters to him, and Highsnobiety spelled it out: there are plenty of cars on big wheels with wild paint, but donks are specifically Chevrolet Impalas or Caprices built from 1971 to 1976.

His following grew online. Ree runs the Instagram account @donkplanet, which took off in part, Highsnobiety reported, after former NFL receiver Chad Johnson reposted it. That audience is a big part of why a parking-lot show in Miami can draw cars and people the way Donk Day does.

Wet paint, good squat

Ask Ree what makes a donk right and he goes to two things. "The paint definitely got to be wet," he told Highsnobiety. And "it got to be squatted; the back got to sit lower than the front. I feel like I got the best squat in the donk game, period."

He talks about the cars the way painters talk about canvases, even though he is not the one holding the spray gun. "Donks is like art on wheels," he said. He described a build as a chain of decisions he makes and pays for: candy red paint, a tweed interior, a 350 or 400 engine, the music. "I'm the one taking it to the shops, I'm the one spending my money. So it's still my vision," he said. "So my donk is my canvas."

Gross's photos show what that looks like when a lot of people make those decisions at once: an orange convertible on gold wheels rolling through the lot, a two-tone Chevy with its hood up showing off a detailed engine bay, gold wire wheels with tires stretched to the lip, a box Chevy with custom script across its trunk, and trunks open to show off upholstery, screens and sound.

A show with no velvet rope

The thing that sets Donk Day apart, by Ree's account, is that it was built for one kind of car and turns nobody away. "I was the first one, to my knowledge, that did a car show really dedicated to donks," he told Highsnobiety. "And although I call it Donk Day, I don't discriminate and try to turn away any cars."

His reasoning comes straight from his own garage history. "Before I had my donk, I had a box Chevy," he said. "Everybody started off somewhere, then eventually they graduate to the donk. I feel like the donk is the king of the jungle." Highsnobiety's photos bear that out. Alongside the 1971 to 1976 cars are boxes, a three-wheeled motorcycle and a pickup with a wall of speakers in the bed.

Where the game is going

Ree has watched building standards climb over 10 years of shows. When he built his car, he said, you did the paint, the interior and the motor. "But now it's gotten to a point where a lot of people are taking the bodies off the frame and painting the bellies of the cars," he told Highsnobiety. Some owners love that, and some think it is ruining the old style. He is relaxed about it. "You wanted to be classic, build yours classic," he said. "Build it to your life, build it to your liking."

He was frank about the side of the scene that is less fun. He said the donk game is divided, that some people hate on others because of their position, and that some had told people not to come to his show. "I would just like to see people get past all the hate," he said. "I appreciate everybody that came. They can think for themselves."

That might be the best description of Donk Day after a decade. It is one man's show, built around one man's idea of what a donk should be, with the gate left open for anybody who is still on their way to one. In a scene that argues constantly about what counts, that is a generous way to run a parking lot.