Our community (pop. 15,000) had its “First Annual Hot-Rod and Custom Car
Show” last Saturday. I heard that they had about 40-50 cars preregistered
by Thursday, had planned on up to 80,..... and had 120 show up!
I had been working graveyard shift last week, so when I got home Friday AM,
my wife convinced me to enter our TR3A. Seems they had a foreign car
division, and a friend of ours was going to enter his ‘36 Type 57 Bugatti!
(3.3 liter dual overhead cam straight eight, mile long hood, 18” chrome wire
wheels with little skinny Dunlop racing tires. Raced at the Monterey
Historics a couple of years ago.) Also have a friend who was going to enter
his ‘72 Ducatti murder-cycle. Well, I have had the car exactly a year and
have never had it in any shows, so I guess I might as well go along and not
be the only one out of place among a bunch of Fords and Chevys.
While I slept, my wife vacuumed the interior (why does everything stick so
well to that carpet?) and I spent the rest of Friday day and evening
cleaning, waxing, cleaning, fixing, cleaning, etc.........
Saturday after work and a few hours of sleep, put everything together and
drove down town. Weather was almost cool with a sea breeze all day, quite
pleasant (sorry you guys back east.) ALL kinds of cars - a very diverse
group. Everything from pretty much stock 30’s, 40’s and 50’s ‘merican iron,
to chopped/channeled/modified everything, to bucket-T roadsters, to real
goofy totally impractical So Cal custom cars. Even several of our famous
cars with little tires and a trunk full of batteries and hydraulic pumps to
make them bounce up and down!
It was ALL KINDS OF FUN to have people come walking up the street just
looking - ho hum, another Mustang, another Chevy, another hot-rod, another
Ford,..... WOW, look at THAT car! Had one little girl shout “Mommy, that’s
a real cool car!”, at which time her mother replied “check out the license”
(“COOL TR3”). Amazing how many people would stop and just look it over
real close and/or say that they used to have one (or an MG or a Healey.)
Between my TR3 and the Bugatti, we had quite a crowd all day and had a
blast. In the end, I even got a 2ed place trophy! Cool!
Frank
‘59 TR3A, (“COOL TR3”) TS55223L ... and 2ed place winner!
Carpinteria, CA
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