Carnuts Rejoice!
Car show season pops the hood on another year
The 2018 car show season has finally arrived with four shows and a race to please almost every car nut. We have the 22nd annual B.C. Classic and Custom Car Show for the hot rod and classic car set; the LAMB’s all-British show in Fort Langley for the sophisticates; the Dubs in the Barn for the Volks’ folks and two days of road course racing at Mission Raceway Park for the sporting types.
Readers of this weekly column know that I typically sign off with a mention about bringing a kid to a car show or race or swap meet, so I’m pleased to see that SEMA has a division heavily promoting ‘Take a Kid to Car Show.’ This year I’ve already been to a couple of car events that had a good number of kids in attendance. These included the Portland Roadster Show, the Vancouver chapter of the Vintage Car Club of Canada Easter Cruise and the Maple Ridge Chapter of the VCCC’s swap meet.
Last weekend while at the Haney Swap meet I was looking at a cool old Fairlane and saw a blast from the past, Mary Spani, my first babysitter. Mary lived across the street from us in Coquitlam and her dad restored a couple of cars. That had a huge part in me loving old cars and seeing them as a great hobby. Mr. Spani took us for rides in his old cars and now Mary’s house is filled with old hot rods as her husband Bruce Browne is a prolific builder of anything with pistons.
This weekend I’m going to try to get to the VW show and the British car show before I head out to the B.C. Classic and Custom Car Show at the Tradex. I will have a booth at the show and will also have the green GTO of Ron Allegretto as part of my display. Come by and say hi. As part of my “bring a kid to a car show” effort, I encourage all to come by and donate an old un-built model car from your crawl space or storage unit and I will give them to the kids that drop by the booth.
This years B.C. Classic and Custom Car Show is shaping up to be a very memorable one. John D’Agostino is going to pick a car to be presented with the Crystal award of elegance, and on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. there will be a “Cackle Fest ” of sorts with 10,000-horsepower top fuel nitro dragsters and jet funny cars firing up outside the building. For the first time ever, American Graffiti nut John Van Werkhoven will show his collection of six tribute cars and one Vespa, all identical to the ones in the movie. Better still they will be shown in front of a huge facade of the Mel’s Drive-in, and the film’s Candy Clark and Bo Huff will be on hand all weekend to meet and mingle with fans. And finally, there will be the Canadian debut of Carly Brogren’s ultra cool ’39 Lincoln Zephyr ‘Amelia.’
So come by and say hello and hopefully I will have some car models to hand out to the kids. But that will only happen if you bring a kid and bring an old model.