This past July I attended the Syracuse Nationals in Syracuse, NY. It was the first time I’ve been to this show, and unfortunately only as a spectator. It is a mecca of hot rodders, but with almost 8000 cars in attendance, it wasn’t hard to find some vehicles that would be of interest to most CC readers, such as this trio of Crosleys.
This Citroen was an unexpected sight not long after I walked through the front gates It was probably the only French car at the entire show.
There was a CC article about a Jeep Cherokee not long ago, except someone had removed all the Indian-head motifs. This example appeared to be in as-new condition.
The Bricklin SV-1, eponymously named brainchild of Malcolm Bricklin. These were manufactured in New Brunswick from 1974-76. Early examples were powered by an AMC 360 but this one had a Ford 351 Windsor under the hood.
This 1979 or ’80 AMX was based on the AMC Spirit. The 1979 AMX was the last AMC car to have a V8 installed, though I don’t know whether this has the 304 cid V8 or the 258 cid I6.
The 1977 Pontiac Can Am was a special edition based on the LeMans. All Can Ams were painted white with decals as seen here. Less than 1500 of them were manufactured, although more had been planned. The mold used to make the fiberglass rear spoiler broke, and it was decided to cancel the model instead of retooling the mold.
Here’s a later rare bird: a 1980 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am Indy pace car replica, one of 5,700 built. The Turbo T/A was Pontiac’s first turbocharged production car. Unfortunately its mediocre performance failed to impress reviewers. (This was one of five different Indy pace car replicas that I saw at Syracuse. I was particularly enthusiastic about seeing them, after reading JPCavanaugh’s excellent treatise on the subject.)
Close-up of the offset hood bulge, oversize Fire-chicken and primitive boost indicator lights.
For the log-roof aficionados, a Buick Estate wagon, 1972 if I’m not mistaken.
If it wasn’t for the people hanging around in lawn chairs, this could’ve passed as a vintage street scene.
Kaiser Henry J with lots of patina. I’ll spare you a picture of the hot rodded yellow Henry J that was parked not far away.
Visible in the Henry J picture was an example of the “shuttle” service to get people around the showgrounds if they didn’t feel like walking. The trucks towing the trailers even looked interesting. They were all shortened Dodge pickups with Cummins diesel power.
One lucky group had their own private shuttle… a Unimog! Five or six people were seated in the back on lawnchairs.
The Henry J wasn’t the only CC-worthy car with a bit of “patina”. Check out this 1956 Chrysler 300B! Oh yeah, it’s got a Hemi alright.
I also spotted another Chrysler letter-car at the show, this 1964 300K. While the baby moons and wide whites wouldn’t have been period-correct modifications, I love the maroon colour. Underhood it’s got the 413 with dual 4-barrel carbs and “long-ram” intake manifolds, which were optional equipment on the 300 in 1964.
Here’s an uncommon but probably not very valuable 1977 or ’78 Plymouth Fury. Proper Furies reside on the fullsize Mopar C-body platform, but the name was moved to the midsize B-body in 1975.
I could go on all day with pictures from this show, but I have to stop sometime because I need to sleep sometime. Suffice it to say, the blisters on my feet from walking for two days were well worth it.
Great photos and really interesting range of vehicles. My favourite: that gorgeous 300K, followed by the Jag Mk II grille and ‘leaper’ bonnet mascot on the green Crosley!
Love the Can Am,letter cars and woody.+1 on great variety,thank you
The Jeep, Can Am, AMX, and Buick Woody are just fantastic. They all are, really.
Great choice of cars to photograph. Thanks for sharing them. Love the Hotshots and the 300B.
What a great selection of cars. My favorite is probably the Estate Wagon.althought the ’66/’72 & ’66 Chevrolet make for a great photo.
Did you nab any shots of that gold ’68 Buick Skylark behind the red Fury?
Sorry, I didn’t. How about a hatchback Nova-based GTO?
From the back…
I really enjoyed the variety of what you photographed. No muscle cars (although inevitably there were probably a ton of them there), no broughams, nothing predictable. If this is an accurate representation of what shows up at that show, I’d love to attend next year.
There were a lot of other stock cars of all varieties, but there were also tons of muscle cars and customs as well. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a deuce coupe. There was a special section devoted to rat rods. I checked it out briefly but decided there was nothing photo-worthy over there. You would, however, have to suffer through this:
And this….
Not the worst thing I’ve seen done to a 59 Caddy…
A group of the most outrageous cars there would be interesting to see too!
Love the hotshots but for me that can am is the one to have. Or that black delta would do to.
Olds W-30, Buick Wagon, loving it… 🙂
Any of these would be welcome in my driveway.
The shortened Dodge intrigues me; I had never seen a shorty pickup until I flew the first time years ago. The support vehicles had my fancy more than the plane itself.
I’m somewhat surprised the ’71 LTD two-door (a darn good machine) had no wheel covers, although that does add to the originality of it, I suppose!
Holy crap! What a great variety! I love cars from the 50s and 60s, don’t get me wrong, but nothing gets me more excited than a lineup of awesome cars from the 70s like that Can Am.
Marvelous, especially those Chrysler 300s. I’ll take them both please.
Loved those details about the AMC V8 and the Can Am Pontiac too.
I had to laugh at the ad it served up under that last Olds W-30.
Lots of cool cars, but my favorite is that Estate Wagon. I love the DS too, but if I’m going to own and maintain one, I’d take the Buick, thank you. Looks especially good in red with the off-white interior.
Syracuse Nationals is a must. I’ve only been able to get there once but the one time I did was amazing. Close enough to Canada you get a nice compliment of Beaumonts, Meteors and the like from the Great White North.
This is an easy event to find too, the NYS Fairgrounds are right off I-690 within 5 miles of the Thruway.
I DJ’ed a local car show today…and we had a ’77 Can-Am in attendance. (Won “Best Pontiac”)
There’s also a Turbo Trans-Am in the neighborhood that pops up every once in awhile.
Oh, and I learned today there’s a Chrysler 300M club. Yes we had one of those…guy said it’s an international club due to the 300M’s popularity in Europe. He says it’s a foot shorter than other LH-bodies such as LHS or Concorde. Who knew?