Bay Rodders president Dean Andersen said the 2015 Street Rod Nationals would be held across the weekend, with Sunday's event Show and Shine at Classic Flyers, and would feature 240 of New Zealand's best hot rods.
"Tauranga has never seen them but we have two nitro cars doing displays - Karl Boniface's Nitro Flashback and Dave Gould from Te Puke will feature his car Nightmare, nitro-mear," he said.
Mr Andersen said more than 2000 people could turn up to such an event.
"You don't get the chance to see these kind of hot rods in one place very often. They are not just Tauranga cars, they are from Christchurch, Nelson, Auckland, Wellington, everywhere, and they are the best cars from around the country too.
"If people haven't heard or seen a nitro car before, they will be blown away."
Sandra Simpson, of the Tauranga Arts Festival, said there was an abundance of shows scheduled to take place over the weekend as well as the ANZ Community Day, which would close traffic off at The Strand from 11am to 3pm.
Ms Simpson said to celebrate the 150 years of Alice in Wonderland a procession of the creations from Wonderland would meet at Red Square at 1.30pm to parade the streets.
A Mad Hatter's tea party would also feature at Dry Dock Cafe throughout the day.
With the weather reports indicating rain for parts of the weekend, some of the festival's events could be moved from Saturday to Monday.
Motel Association committee member Kris Stamatakos said accommodation in the Mount Maunganui and Tauranga areas was almost full, with only a few units left across the whole city.
Metservice forecast rain developing around midday tomorrow with northerly winds while on Sunday rain was easing to showers and winds were turning southerly.
On Monday there will be a few fine spells and a few showers. Winds turning westerly.
