East Coast Indoor Nationals
Posted by Carl King - 21/12/06 at 01:12 pmTimonium fairgrounds
Dec 2,2006
There were some incredibly beautiful classic cars, and muscle cars here. This was the perfect event for what appeared to be one of the few remaining nice days of 2006. My son, myself and BW, a friend of mine who shares the classic car bug spent a leisurely 2 hours here and we only toured the place once.
This is one of those events that reveals the true appreciation most Americans have for pre 1973 classic cars apart from the most popular of the American muscle cars of the 50’s and 60’s. There were plenty of obscure classic cars there with some very creative modifications and paint jobs. Even I wasn’t sure what models some of them were. Don’t get me wrong, there were still the very popular Camaros, Mustangs, Chargers and 55 thru 57 Chevy’s there.
We saw cars from as far as Michigan. Not exactly an east coast state but with this many hot classic cars in one place no one is going fuss about it.
My son isn’t such a classic car buff that he was excited to go, but he still likes
to hang out with the men. He had his eye on a model of a 59 El Camino shortly after we got there though, and made sure we didn’t leave without it. As of this writing he has most of it put together.
While wandering around the vendor section I picked up a set of stainless dental picks for $4 from one of the tool vendors. I should use them to clean my teeth but instead I was going to use them to finish a tune up on the wife’s car. The rubber boot on the end of the spark plug wire had come off and was stuck around the spark plug. I needed something about 6 inches long with a hook on the end that I could use to pull it out of the cylinder head. I couldn’t get the spark plug out without removing the boot.
Enough about my troubles. We came to see the cars.
Some of these classic cars were truly masterpieces. It’s easy to see how these machines cost a fortune to restore and customize. Many of them easily cost at least 50 grand. The paint jobs alone on some were 10 thousand dollar jobs. We saw a few flame jobs that were done in the photo realistic fashion, probably by airbrush. Somehow I still prefer the flame jobs of old though. The realistic flames look good but are just too busy for the eye and almost hard to look at. Less is more in this case.
The beautiful paint jobs were on the ones with the really deep or brilliant colors. It was easy to see how the painters put the best of their efforts into mastering the basics. Good base colors with complimentary pin striping or secondary “2 tone” colors. Others chose to stick with the factory colors on their factory classic car restorations.
There weren’t a lot of factory original interiors. The majority of the custom
interiors were done in warm variations of muted colors of tweed. One thing I like about this style of interior is that the colors and design invoke a sense of class and comfort. Vinyl or leather interiors somehow look cheap in comparison, although I’m sure the opposite is true. Some of the interiors done this way do a better job of accentuating the classic car’s body lines than the factory original interiors did. Three dimensional classic car emblem designs were seen on many door panels. I’ve picked up quite a few creative ideas for my own 64 Impala.
Was it worth $50 for an afternoon out with a friend and my son? Absolutely!
It’s too bad they didn’t promote the event more. They would have had a bigger turnout. If BW hadn’t called to tell me about it, I wouldn’t have known and likely would have missed it. After he told me about it and the event was now on my radar, I had only heard a radio commercial once in the next few days.
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