Good day my fellow gearheads! After much delay, here’s the long-awaited third installment of the Mayfair Park car show this past summer. Grab a beer and your mouse- you’re in for a ride.
First up is this cool assortment of vintage air cooled VeeBubs…
Including this red hot ( and rare ) notchback coupe.
This cool blue Karmann Ghia.
And this minty-fresh Beetle ( the same one featured in the cover photo ) .
A slick Ford highboy roadster and a sweet ’62 Impala.
A couple of lead sleds- a ’48-’50 Merc ( I think ) and a ’47 (?) Caddy.
I don’t know what this thing is…
This super-nice Ford Tudor sporting Chevy power ( what else ) ? I have to admit- the time honored trend of endowing prewar Ford street rods with Chevy power is starting to wear on me a little, since a properly built 351 Windsor can be built to perform just as well as a Mouse, and for not much more money.
A ’71 / ’72 Pontiac LeMans, a ’57 Bel Air, an Austin Healy MK 3000, a ’56 Bel Air, and a postwar Ford coupe.
And speaking of the Austin Healey, this one is hiding a big secret…
A 327 Chevy! I’m not too keen on those flimsy plastic fuel filters dangling right above the engine, but to each his / her own. Just replace it frequently and keep a fire extinguisher handy.
A view inside the Healey. WITH a manual trans, the way a car like this should be.
Another 300-series Chevelle two-door post sedan sporting the Pro Street treatment. Is this becoming the next big thing?
A sweet ’66 LeMans ragtop. It’s rather refreshing to see one of these that hasn’t been turned into a GTO clone.
This gorgeous old Plymouth Fury drew me like a moth to a flame, and I’m not even a Mopar guy.
I can’t remember what size the engine was in this beauty, but it sure is clean under there.
This Bel Air kustom was retro-cool.
I’ll end this installment with these nifty and rare A-body Barracudas. In all my years of vintage car spotting, this is only the second or third time I’ve seen an A-based Barracuda ragtop in the flesh my whole life.
I wanted to make this post longer, but this brutal heatwave is sapping my strength, so I’ll stop here. Keep your eyes peeled for part 4!
Wow, what a great selection there!
I’ll start by beating my same tired drum. Do you see one VW there that isn’t lowered and/or over-accessorized? Yawn.
The mint green is a lovely color though.
Gloriously ugly 1963 Fury, I just love those. Would that be a Poly 318?
Not a 318 Poly, those had a rear distributor and the valve covers are wrong. I’m betting on either a 361 or a 383. Edit – if I am right that the link in my comment below shows this very car, it is a 383.
I agree. I like them just like they came from the factory. I shot this very nice stock ’71 Karmann Ghia at a local car show/benefit two weeks ago:
It’s not just the VWs, either. Everything except the Le Mans and the Fury (quite like that one, though it’s obviously a trailer queen) has been either resto-modded to hell or dropped and shod with massive and ugly wheels.
Cars at shows in Europe and Asia I’ve been to are usually stock and have varying levels of patina. You find the odd US-style over-restored car and some mods, but they are a small minority (unless you go to a show dedicated to those kinds of cars).
Seems it’s the other way around in the US. No idea why that is, and sure, “whatever floats your boat” is a phrase I can only agree with, but it’s funny that so many folks seek to “individualize” their cars, only for the results to look so uniform.
The funny ting is : those over restored and cliche’ cars are always for sale as soon as they’re finished ~ no one actually likes them to drive, just to look at and brag about .
Hopefully this Spring there will be one more old battered unrestored and only slightly modified ’59 VW Typ 113 plying the shows .
I really like the wide variety of the cars shown here .
-Nate
Like DougD, that 63 Fury really pulls my chain. What is funny is that the one car that seems to be modified into a pro street clone more than any other (62-64 Plymouth and Dodge) is bone stock at this show full of modified cars.
In looking for an interior picture for one of these I stumbled on what might be this very car featured in an online profile a couple of years ago. If it is the same car (and it sure looks like it is) it has a 383 under hood. http://www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.com/mmo92015.html
I have never been able to get excited about Barracuda coupes or convertibles of this generation. The fastbacks are the only ones that ever looked right to me.
Caddy is a ’48 or ’49 Sedanette, Not sure what Series though.
If the side trim is original, series 61 had this trim, series 62 had a chrome section behind the front wheels, if they dechromed, hard telling.
I loved the Italian looking Barracuda converts and ht’s and had several, my favorite a triple black 68 w/ 340/auto/well loaded.
I’ll agree. The 19)3 Plymouth is the head turner. Ice collage of old cars.
That LeMans is a ’67, not a ’66. My first car was a ’67.
If Pro Street is the Next Big Thing, it will be a rerun. Pro Street was all the rage in the late ’70s, early ’80s, just after the van craze.
I think JPC means Max Wedge clone. That’s the current fad.
Yes. Brain fade stikes again. Max Wedge, Pro Street, Yada Yada Yada. All the same to me. 🙂
What a horror show. Is this a Halloween post? Terrible to see so many lovely, defenseless cars totally f*d-up by utterly tasteless and disrespectful individuals (some of whom, in my view, deserve a prison sentence). And apparently, “loweritis” is an infectuous disease over there? No vaccin available yet? One thing I’m sure of: I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
While my attitude isn’t as strong or as nasty as Henk’s, I have to agree with him.
Does anybody bother to restore an antique car to factory stock anymore? Or has the “American Graffiti” disease overwhelmed the entire vintage car hobby anymore.
Some nice cars there, and I can appreciate a good custom or two, but really . . . . And I’m also amused by the one car that is almost never seen in stock form (the Plymouth), here is a gorgeous antique restoration.
If I go the rest of my life without hearing someone refer to his old car project as “a build” I will die a happy man.
A think a big influence are the myriad cable and internet shows highlighting and promoting modified cars (i.e. Jay Leno’s Garage. etc.).
The primary aim of most of these shows is to sell custom accessories and mods that advertisers are promoting, and the consumerism in folks is eating it up.
The internet has pushed marketing everything into high gear.
Baby-tailfin Caddy for me
Since I spent a good part of my life around Hot Rods, my heart naturally beats faster when I see a modified classic car.
I would love to take that Chevy powered Austin Healey for a spin.
I had a 100M and a 3000 with slightly pumped engines. A friend from Canada built a metalflake orange 3000 with a pumped 383 Chevy and that was what it did best -spin.
first, Thanks Chris for taking the time to share the pics. sadly , as is becoming usual when cars such as some of these are featured, there are a few comments revealing automotive bigotry. it is hard for me to reconcile how one can be an auto enthusiast while also holding these kinds of opinions but maybe i’m not the type of member that CC is geared towards informing.
my Halloween nightmare? i am a car show participant being led away in cuffs while the vehicle that I’ve displayed after many years and dollars bringing back to gleam from junkyard scrap is being torched by the “taste police” for having the incorrect width of whitewall.
From where this American love for aftermarket wheels?
Whenever I see pics of US car shows I see rows of lovingly restored cars/mild customs, many of them being let down by these horrid, blingy, oversized wheels. It’s beyond me why people throw away the -often beautiful- original wheel(cover)s, that were part the car’s original design, and install a dime-a-dozen set of trailer park specials instead.
i know watchu mean. as a self appointed car show CC (Cranky Curmudgeon) i am constantly telling owners of T-Buckets, Deuce Coupes, and Hi-Boys how much better their rod would look with the complete set of pristine stock wheels and caps they found in the trunk of the hulk they towed home when they began the project.