Bill Clark

I didn't capture his Desoto, but this Chrysler product was there. Sometimes it is hard to tell where the hot rod part of the show ended and the real car part started. Bill

Wow! A twin. I could not make it to Hershey last year and none of my friends reported this sighting. The car at Hershey was not my car and in my humble opinion is in better shape than mine. Not sure if the Hershey car has an engine, but mine is all original and mostly all shot. Mine has a bit of hidden rust. This one has the correct front parking lights and probably the rears. The grill is in better shape. And the Hershey one was right hand drive. Mine came from New Zealand and is left hand drive. What a treat to find another like mine. And yes, the car in the Syracuse Gallery I posted was mine. My non AACA friends had only talked about the hot rods and motorized Coke Coolers at this show and did not mention that groups like The Oneida Lake Region brought some properly restored wheels. From what I heard, I thought my Fiat would be more appreciated that some of my other trailer princesses so that's what I took. As I noted before, this was a great show and will be on my agenda for a while. Bill

In 20+ years of car shows, I've never been to the Syracuse show. There has always been a conflict. Besides, it was Hot Rods. Last years three day attendance was more than 7500 cars. Friends have been telling me I should go, so I put my bigotry aside, strapped down my Fiat and went up this morning. Although there were some cars that made me uneasy such as a rodded out prewar Packard, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of different cars and by the restored to original cars. The local AACA club had a great display in one of the buildings. It is the biggest car show I have ever been to with cars scattered all over the NY State fair grounds in no order. When you wander and look at cars you can find restored originals, rat rods, factory prototypes, kit cars and survivors, all together. And people having a good time. I took a few snap shots of cars that rocked my boat. Slideshow of pictures, photos, and videos, from webshots Enjoy Bill

I just got a pdf of a newsletter. It was great. Lots of nice stories that kept my attention, lots of pictures and a nice layout. My problem was it was 7 megabytes. Some of the people in my club do not have cable modems and getting the file into their house is a problem. I just finished my July newsletter using MS Publisher. The publisher file contained 18 pictures and the Publisher version was 44 Meg. As I was laying it out I cropped most of the pictures to fit what I was doing. When I was happy with what I had done, I right clicked on a picture and selected the compress icon and told publisher to compress the file. It throws away the cropped edges and readjusts the resolution for viewing on a screen. My 44 Meg file went to 14 Meg when I compressed it for commercial printing and 2.5 Meg when I compressed it for web viewing. When I made a pdf file out of the 14 Meg version it went to a pdf file that was 1.9 Meg. If I compressed the web viewing version it went to 1.3 Meg. To avoid confusion, I make one file that's the same for the printer and to view and this month I settled for 1.9Meg. People keep increasing the bandwidth into their houses, but we still need to to make it easy for people to get the electronic version and wean them off the hard copy. Stamps and printing are expensive. Bill http://iroquoisaaca.org/downloads/Newsletters/2012/July%2012.pdf

The Metropolitan Owners Club of North America would like to thank the AACA and the Celebration City Region for their support in making the Mets a part of the 2012 show in Shelbyville. Without exception, the Met club people that attended, especially the people new to AACA, enjoyed themselves immensely. Our members came from New York, LA, Wisconsin, Arizona, Tennessee and parts in between and brought a total of 21 cars to the Met show on Friday. We picked up seven new Met Club members. Four of the Met club people who had never shown with AACA before brought their Mets to the AACA show on Saturday and left with had a first, two seconds and an HPOF tab. This was great testimony showing how joint meets can help antique car clubs to grow. The combination of new friends, new cars, new members and new memories made it great weekend. Thanks for having us Bill Clark, MOCNA Director, longtime AACA Member The picture below is Brad Swiggart, MOCNA President and Herb Oakes at the Met Hospitality tent.

I just posted a ton of pictures in the Shelbyville gallery. I'm always amazed at the size and scope of a Grand National Show. It is truly a spectacle. Enjoy Bill Annual Grand National-Shelbyville - AACA PHOTO GALLERY

Is there a count on cars for the Grand National Meet and for the Saturday Show? Bill

There is a note in the Winter Rummage box from Myron Smith about using the AACA brochure as a part of our recruiting activities. I did not find a link anywhere to order these. Where can members go to get a handful? Thanks Bill

Steve's first love was music. His Dad played for a few nights in WWII with Glenn Miller and still plays three nights a week. Steve played the string bass, the tuba and trumpet, somewhere, almost every night. Bill http://www.iroquoisaaca.org/

Our club sends 75 newsletters a month to members and friends of the club. All members that have an email get a soft copy, but a few have requested soft copy only. Our printing is donated by a club member, so our hard copy newsletter cost is roughly $350 a year. In an effort to encourage more members and friends to get the soft copy, I have tried to enhance the soft copy version by including hyperlinks to source data, other clubs sites, show flyers or to AACA web pages. Most of the meets listed in the newsletter calendar have a hyperlink that is unobtrusive and unknown to the hardcopy readers. Quite often in my stories I include a link and a comment, such as Reading Show information is at this link (a hyperlink), then show the link. Softcopy readers can click on this link and for example, see the Reading Show trifold. In this months newsletter I included a reference to a hyperlink that did not show up in the print version. My logic is if you don't have a computer, then this link is not going to help you, even if I give the link, so why bother. I traveled home for Easter and my mother was reading the hard copy newsletter instead of her normal soft copy version. She asked what "this link" meant. I guess the lesson here is whenever a link is mentioned, it should be spelled out. I'm going to keep including the hyperlinks in the soft copy version to make it valuable to people with PCs, but if I mention a link then I should type the link itself out in the print version. Bill Iroquois Region Editor http://www.iroquoisaaca.org/downloads/Newsletters/2012/Apr%2012.pdf

Thank you Susan. Bill

I have a friend that is considering showing his Met at the Shelbyville, TN show this summer. He is new to AACA and before he drives the 2300 miles one way, he thought it might be good if an AACA judge could look his car over first. If there is a judge near Antioch, AC that would be able to look at his car, please send me a PM and I'll put you in touch. Thanks Bill

Can I ask what there is about the Rockwell painting that identifies the car as a 31 instead of a 33? Bill Mets, Studebakers and an old Fiat, but no Dodges.

Something like this 33 Dodge DP Deluxe Sedan? Bill

Sorry, I should have included a new chart with my last post. Many of these cars got bigger engines as time went on. I have used displacement of the engine at the models introduction for my chart. Additionally, cars like the Chevette get longer wheelbase with time. I'm making the class selection based on the numbers for the introductory model. I'd be glad to share my spreadsheet and would welcome comments on other cars between 1500 and 2000cc that fit my criteria above but might not be appropriate for the class. Bill

Class X Micro Cars, vehicles with engines less than 1000cc, as defined by the Vintage Micro Car Club Class Y A defined list of subcompact cars generally introduced between 1953 and 1978, having between 1000 and 2000cc engines and wheelbase shorter than 100 inches. I would have one class of cars of 1000cc or less as defined by the Vintage Micro Car Club. In general, this class of car was intended as a step up from a motor scooter, might have two seats and unconventional brakes and steering. You could end it there if that was the consensus and put the Mets and VW and whatever else back in their production classes. There might be interest however, in a class of vehicles specifically named that were intended as subcompact cars. These cars were introduced with engines between 1000cc and 2000cc, wheelbase shorter than 100 inches, the conveniences of modern cars, like hydraulic brakes, automotive steering, radios, heaters and comfortable seats. These were intended to be used as a second car, were built for economy and are often defined as throwaway cars. This class would include the Met, the VW and early post war Japanese cars and include a group of small cars that responded to the 70s gas crisis. My list of these cars would include these: Met, 1st gen Honda Civic 73-79, Datsun 1000, Datsun 210, Pinto, Volkswagen, VW Rabbit, Fiat 124, Chevette, Vega, Dodge Omni. Before changing any of the classes, I would review the list of AACA registered cars and ensure that each car assigned to the new category made sense. Assignment of vehicles would be at the discretion of the VP of Class Judging. Bill

People seem to be tired of this discussion, but let me add a proposal. As I see it, there are three groups of small cars, the micros under 500 cc, minis under 1000 and subcompacts under 2000cc. Many cars get bigger engines as their life goes on, but lets just class them by the smallest engine they had. We could make two classes, under 950 cc and from 950 to 2000. This puts these in the under 950 class Peel Isettas Subaru 360 Citroen 2CV King Midget Honda S500 Crosley/Crofton Honda S600 American Austin/Bantam Renault Caravelle Morris Minor Mini Coopers DKW Autobianchi The 950 to 2000 class (if you want a class for subcompacts) would have cars like these Met Honda Civic Datsun 1000 Datsun 210 Pinto Volkswagon VW Rabbit Fiat 124 Chevette Vega Dodge Omni Unless there is some comment on this I'll go away and bang on an old fender. Let me know if I can help. Bill

The attached plot shows the wheelbase and minimum HP for the cars considered for class 4b. I plotted Horsepower, but the chart would be about the same if I had used wheelbase and cc. From this plot, VW rabbits clearly do not belong in this class. They have a long wheelbase and more horsepower than any of these cars. Its clear that the micro cars belong. These are cars having displacements below 500 cc, but the cars of issue here are the mini cars, those small cars above 500cc. The 2CV has a long wheel base, but is low hp. It belongs. The Met at 45 HP belongs, and at 55 HP (not shown) probably still fits in the group. The VW at 24 HP looks like it belongs, but at 54 HP in the later models (not shown) would not. I'd argue that if one Beetle would not fit in the class, then none should. I think we could use a chart like this to make an intelligent decision about what should fit and what would not. Bill

Here's the list of cars less than 1000cc. There would still be some work to define the cars from 1000cc to 1500cc unless someone finds a similar list. Bill

I think Mets probably belong in this class, but I doubt that anything much bigger, ie, longer than 85 inch wheelbase or greater than 55 HP belongs here. Mets belong in this class because its just not fair to park a Met in class 27B and have some of them big beauties become invisible while everyone drools over the Met. Mets are 85 inch wheelbase. The HP ranges from 42 in the early 1200 cc cars to 55 in the later cars with the big bores (90 ci or 1489cc) and high compression, 8.3 to 1. The Micro Car Club simply says less than 500 cc is a micro car and between 500cc and 1500cc is a mini car, but then they add a list. My earlier post around last December gives a link to a list of cars that these definitions include. Its a huge list. Maybe we say anything 85 inch wheelbase or less that is not in one of the other classes. Since the intent is to put funky little cars in their own class, why not just say Class 04 - Funky little cars. Bill

re: scratches in cars Can't speak to the actors and crew, but if they keep their documentary true to the original incident, there should be few shots fired. Bill

The shoot will be on Marshland Road in Apalachin, NY, thats where the big meeting and the subsequent raid was. Marshland Road is in upstate NY, ten or so miles west of the intersection of I81 and NY17 (I86) . If you have a car and are interested, contact Frank at the address above. He has all the facts. And sure, a new 58 would work. They would especially like police cars. Bill I could contribute a Met, but I doubt many self respecting Mafia bosses rode in one.

Short notice, but in the week after Labor Day, a movie company is doing a documentary of the big Mafia meeting in Apalachin, NY. They are looking for cars they might use as props. Since the meeting was Nov 14, 1957, they'd rather not have anything newer than 57s. If you have a car that you could bring to the show, please contact Frank Whitney at overland14 at aol.com Bill Apalachin Meeting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hi Does someone have a nice picture of a 60 Dodge Dart Wagon I can use for a newsletter article? I found one picture of a junker on line but it has no credits. Blue would be the color of choice. Thanks Bill Iroquois Region, AACA Inc

I too am looking forward to the new class 04 and am bringing along my beater Met. I went to college at Norwich and going back to VT is like going home. If the forecast stays just showers, I should be there. If it gets worse, well.... Bill