Summer Car Show

A local Chevrolet dealer hosts an antique, collector, and hot rod car show every July.  The tradition started thirty years ago.  The dealer would clear out part of his used car lot to make room for thirty or forty show cars.  The dealer would set up a tent and his employees would sell a few brats, hot dogs and hamburgers to the several hundred people who wold show up.

The show grew larger every summer.  It attracted more than one thousand cars this year and a crowd estimated at more than five thousand motorheads.  The Lions Club mans a huge food and beverage tent.  Nearby bars and restaurants are packed.  Cars that are to be displayed arrive beginning at 8 AM.  When the one-thousandth car arrives, the show is closed to any more entries.  That happened at 10 AM this year.  Quiet a few cars had to be turned away.

Fortified by a nice hot bratwurst for breakfast, I wandered around the grounds.

The first thing I did was look for my friend and dentist, Dr. Neal.  We've known each other since high school.  I found him with his 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner.

Neal bought this car new in 1969.  No one else has ever owned it. He drove it for about 30,000 miles, then parked it.  It now has about 36,000 miles and is entirely original, except for tires (which are reproductions of the factory originals), brake shoes, oil and filters.  It is a flawless, original, unrestored car.  Neal drives it a little in summer, but not very far.  The engine hasn't been modified to run on crappy unleaded pump gasoline, so he has to buy racing gas at $9 per gallon.  A $100 fill-up is good for an afternoon of driving.

When Neal parked this car, he bought a 1971 Dodge Challenger.  He drove that car about 30,000 miles, and parked it.  It's the other car in his garage.  Perfect original, and unrestored.  Neal drives a beater Toyota pickup truck to work.  No a/c, crank-up windows, AM radio, cloth seats.  A man has to have his priorities straight.

This 1923 Ford caught my eye.  This kind of hot rod is called a "Bucket T" because it's body is from a Ford Model T and it looks like a bucket.

Jan and Dean sang about it, back when.

There were a few 1932 Ford coupes made into hot rods.  These are called "Deuce Coupes" because of the number 2 in the year 1932.  Don't ask me to explain.

Can't be a hot rod without a song, right?  The Beach Boys recorded Little Deuce Coupe. I'm imagining Dust Bunny Queen in a flannel skirt with a poodle on it, saddle shoes and a blouse, sitting in a Deuce Coupe.