Not All Car Shows Are Fun

Posted on May 9, 2018 in Antique | Comments Off on Not All Car Shows Are Fun

I once tried to describe a local car show as a place where everyone is a friend, where car people gather to share their latest projects, and where history and beauty is literally “at your fingertips.” My ramblings describe a warm summer evening where children play, dogs roam, families walk hand in hand, and the elderly teach wide-eyed children about advancements in automotive history. It’s a nice tale, but it is not always true.

One show I went to recently was held at a sports bar in Middleboro, MA. My friend Bill and I went to check out what we thought would be 50-100 cars. We fired up the old Jag, which we had spent the day working on, and started our drive south. Immediately, I noticed was that the old girl was not much fun to drive anymore. In spite of all the work, her steering was loose, many of her horses have long since galloped away, and it seemed with every bump another precious part of her would fly off. In spite of this, we soldiered on.

This particular show had recently moved from an easily accessible spot close to my house, to a dirt parking lot hours into the backwoods of Middleboro. There was nothing around, and it seemed a very strange place to have a sports bar, until we saw the clientele. The place attracts very loud groups of bikers, which explained why there were no homes close by, and presumably no one to call the police.

The front lot was reserved for what amounts to the local biker gang. All sorts of dangerous looking people in leather, boots and chains hung around the bikes. It looked like something between Altamont and Sturgis, and every few minutes the sound of a un-muffled chopper would blast the air, breaking the din from the 1980’s Van Halen music that played constantly.

There were cars there. Some of them were interesting, as you can see from some of the photos. My favorite was a Shelby Cobra replica by Factory Five Racing. It is one of the best examples of this very popular replica, with stunning orange paint and great chrome rims. Chevrolet was well represented with a large selection of Belair models from 1955, 56, and 1957. The latter was an amazing black convertible, and one of the best 57 Chevy’s I’ve ever seen.

Despite the environment, the show was interesting. There were no children playing, or families holding hands, but there was a nice selection of muscle cars and classics to make it worthy of an article. I learned a lot from the day…my Jag still needs work, and some bikers can be very scary.