Braved The Heat This Weekend....

Dan Sarandrea (Phila)

Waitin' On Parts...
....and participated in two car shows.

Saturday's show was a long-running event hosted by an area car club. Although the venue had plenty of shade, organizers said that almost one-third of the pre-registered participants decided to stay home and stay cool rather than bake in the 97 degree / 111 degree heat index. Spectators were nowhere to be found. The X picked up a "Top 40" award.

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Among a nice collection of hot rods, muscle cars, custom trucks and a lot of attentively restored VWs from the "Old School Euros" VW club (roof racks were definitely the "must-have accessory!) was this ho-hum, why-bother 1954 Ford sedan. Well, that's what I thought until I got closer.

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Turns out it's a 1954 Ford Crestline Sunliner, which has a factory acrylic panel embedded into the front half of the roof! The granddaddy of the Saratoga Top?

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On Sunday I participated in the 59th annual New Hope Auto Show, a two-day event conducted in the traditional manner, with a wide range of classes and a more discriminating approach. Again due to the similar temps and heat index, participation was off by 1/3 and public attendance was off by my guess of at least 1/2.

Sunday's classes are 90% European marques, and as usual the Porsche, Rolls, and Mercedes-Benz classes were well-attended, while the Wooly Hat Brigade classes (MG, Austin-Healy, Jaguar, etc) seemed to be thinner. The only car in the Foreign Exotic class that caught my eye was a 2006 Noble, which I had never seen in person before.

The Alfa Romeo class had a fleet of Spiders and Duettos, and a very spunky looking 1958 Giulietta, but I spent most of my time in the Alfa paddock looking at a 1985 GTV6 Callaway Twin Turbo and a simply gorgeous 1972 Montreal in powder blue, which is of course a Marcello Gandini design while he was at Carrozzeria Bertone.

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The Specialty Car Class had my X1/9, Paul F's (from NJ FIATs) beautiful 1985 Pininfarina Azzura, a Marcos, some kind of Cobra kit-car thing, and a 1959 Velorex Oskar micro-car. The only other X1/9 in the show (a 1987) was entered in the Historically Preserved class.

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And Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, the Oskar does not have metal body panels, it has vinyl-coated fabric panels!

I was lucky enough to pick up First Place in the Class.

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