Displaying Cars

[Guest]

In "DPC article" there is mention of how cars are shown.  In 60 years of going to car shows I have seen the cars broken down by make, by year, sometimes by model but the best display I saw (and I cannot even imagine the logistics of doing this) was by year but making sure no makes were next to each other, and the years were chronological.  It was real neat to see the differences year by year between the major manufacturers and also the independents.  Seeing how the styles and features changed. Of course this is not doable if you were having judging.

[john2dameron]

Anytime I go to a car show I try to find out where the oldest cars there are located and start out looking at these cars.  I went to a show held on the grounds of a Junior College in Asheville, NC in 2006.  When I entered the show grounds there were the oldest cars and as I made my way around the college campus the cars got newer and newer.  This was the neatest layout I have come across at a show. 

[Paul Dobbin]

I agree that having cars in age order is a fun way to see a Car Show.  AACA sort of does that with Brass cars together and the judging classes groupings.  However I notice that often show going people will skip the classes where they think, "If you've seen one you've seen them all", if it's Model A Fords or early T-birds,  Maybe, by decade is a better way,  20's, 30's, 40's 50's, 60's, etc..  Most judges can recognize their class participants and may have to straddle decades to do their work.  In HPOF and previous National Award winners in a special groups is nice to see what's judged to be the best.

The best car show I ever attended was at Heritage Village in Largo FL.  All vehicles 1959 & older were invited to a "Picnic in The Park". The village is 22 acres of pines & palmettos with 28 historical buildings, including a store, school, log cabin, homes, fire dept., doctors office, church, boat house, barn, and gardens depiciting the life style of 150 years of Pinellas County culture.  It was free show and participants were invited to come in period dress of the vintage of their vehicles and picnic on the grounds of the village.  Some churned ice cream, Good Humor Ice Cream was available from a Cushman powered vendor cart.  No fires allowed, and most brought picnic baskets an had running board lunches or manifold cooking and spread a blankets on the ground.  The cars were parked at random throughout the woods and around the buildings and we all were in the time warped twilight zone.  

The show lasted for 23 years of Easter Saturdays before some idiot a the counties risk management office decided that pedestrians and motor cars didn't mix.  To bad, because it raised $4000 a year for the village, who also  lost one of it's most popular events.

But to me, seeing the all those cars beautiful car being used an enjoyed in a real life fun day, was awesome.  Everything from a Stanley Steamer to a 59 Cadillac could be seen with about 140 vehicles participating.  We had a 1932 school bus, a 1935 motor home,  a few early motor cycles, a 40's speedboat and about every marque you can think of in automobiles 1912 to 1959.  Music, food and antiques is hard to beat, but no judging, just fun.

I

Postcard1.bmp

Edited May 23, 2016 by Paul Dobbin
double text (see edit history)

[Amphicar BUYER]

I tend to walk past many cars when they are grouped to together. After seeing 10-20+ mustarovettes, i filter them out for the more unique cars. Oh ANOTHER corvette, (yawn)...

[huptoy]

The AACA shows usually require advance notice you are showing a vehicle.  This will allow the show parking group to allow a number of spaces for each year or range of years.  It can create a nightmare when parking cars because there is never any rime or reason of the sequence of car coming in.  When cars do not show up, you will have empty spaces all over the field.

 

I was involved in a show with 200 cars in 29 classes.  This required using the previous years count by class to define the spaces by class plus 2 to 5 extra spots per class.  It took several hours to mark the grass field to define the parking spaces.  It required 5 or 6 people to direct cars to the assigned space.  Then you have two cars in different classes wanting to park together.  Also, one year the local T-Bird club came unannounced and we had 3 times the normal count.  Am I complaining, NO.  But, hopefully you can see why cars are usually parked as first come, first parked.

[60FlatTop]

You mean the block of wood with Group 27D and my name WASN"T my trophy!