Friday, June 30, 2006

We're All Wet

Due to the floods, car posts have been on hiatus. Please visit my other blog to see a few of my photos, or go to www.wnep.com and click Flood Slideshow for a better idea of the situation here in Pennsylvania.

Oh, and get ready for a "flood" of salvage vehicles to hit the auctions.


Tuesday, June 27, 2006

GMs @ Carlisle

Well, our Sunday visit was mostly a washout, but some of the other showgoers said Saturday was pretty good. By the time we rolled in Sunday morning most of the people had packed up and left, or were in the process of doing so. The display cars were still there, of course, so after making an hourlong pass through the car corral and the show field (what was left of them) we headed inside.

Here's a few snaps. The rest are being uploaded to ImageShack.

This is the new Camaro mock-up. I like the attitude; it looks mean an' nasty. But the windows are way too short for any kind of decent road vision and the back end is fat.
Hehehehehehe!
If my husband and I combined some of our respective dream-car options, we'd get this green wagon with a 502 and a stick-shift. I seriously fell in love with it.
Fins, chrome, and two-tone paint... *sigh*
Hey, this looks familiar! Dad had a Nova SS and it was a nifty car. Still have a soft spot for them.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Father's Day Ford Show

We took Dear Ol' Dad to Montoursville for a small Ford show. There was a good turnout, actually, but after Carlisle it was small to me! And it was hot as blazes, with no shade. So we only stayed for an hour or two. Long enough to see all the cars and wait for Dad to talk to people, as Dad does. He and the hubby made it on the city news that night too, looking under the hood of a car while the camera guy filmed them.

Anyway, since I'm now backed up with over 100 photos in queue, here's just my favorite one from last Sunday's show:
Shiny happy people... *groan*

Already?!

I haven't even finished loading all the photos from the Ford show, and GM weekend is here!

We both had to work today, so we're going early in the morning to spend the day in Carlisle. My hubby wants to be there in time for breakfast at his favorite restaurant. I asked him if he was going to be able to wake me up and get me in the truck by 6 AM... he replied that I should just sleep in the truck tonight and save him the hassle! (I am NOT a morning person.)

My idea, voiced the past several times we've gone there, is that we should just move closer to Harrisburg and Carlisle. We'd be near the car shows, good restaurants, and more selection for our shopping needs. He hates cities and thinks it would be a pain living there. I remind him that there are a lot of country-type areas outside the city. He brings up traffic, I counter with better jobs. He gets the last word in... "Not enough mountains." Can't argue with that.

Now I hear that Carlisle Productions, the group who puts on the car shows, is considering moving to a new location a bit farther south. I'll be sad to see the shows leave the old fairgrounds, but I'm optimistic that a move will help traffic issues among other things. And per the rumor, it won't be that much farther away, so we'll still be able to attend our usual 5-6 shows a year. I foresee more overnighters though... hope there are some nice camping places nearby!

Anyway, if you're around the GM show tomorrow, come on up and say hi!

Sunday, June 18, 2006

She What?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled coverage of Carlisle to bring you the following breaking news...

My stepmom has been wanting another car. The plan was to get something practical for the area and hand down her Subaru to my younger brother, who just started driving.

Practical for the area:
  • AWD or at the very least front-wheel-drive (gets through snow better)
  • Traction control
  • Place for coffee mug(s)
  • Safety and capability driving in snow and mud or, in other seasons, 4 miles down a dirt-and-gravel road twice a day
  • Not low to the ground
She was looking at BMWs. I thought this was a bit unusual, until I looked over the kind she had in mind. It fit the bill, looked great, had four doors and the above options. She'd already had a Subaru and the BMW seemed like a good choice in spite of the price tag.

She also liked the Subaru Legacy and a couple of other makes but those ideas were short-lived.

Yesterday she and Dad went out "car-browsing" just for kicks. They weren't planning on actually buying anything for another couple of months. Last night she drove home in a... ready for this?.... 1996 Camaro convertible. She saw it, she liked it, end of story. Looks like this one:


So much for practicality! But she said the same thing I always say... you don't find a car, it finds you. And that one, for some unexplainable reason, found her. We went out for a quick drive and it's really a fun car; it will be even more fun the first time she tries to drive down the mountain with a foot of snow on the ground. ;-P They got a good deal on it. Only has 62k miles and is clean as can be, and it's green with a tan top and interior. She's already learned the hard way that "E" on the fuel gauge means "EMPTY," not "you have another 15 miles to get gas."

If I lived where they did it's probably one of the last cars I'd consider buying, but sometimes you gotta have a little bit of fun. She's going to love it. If not, I'll wait until the middle of winter when she's missing that AWD and offer to buy it from her... *evil grin*

Saturday, June 17, 2006

More Ford Show Photos

MUSTANG GALLERY

Also, I added the rest of the BRONCO pics to the gallery in the previous post. We fell in love with this one in a showroom window, so we took it home...

;-)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Woohoo! Broncos!

I decided to start with the Carlisle theme, "40 Years of the Bronco." I'm kinda partial since we happen to own a final-year fullsize Bronco. I added in some of the trucks that were there as well. Sorry for the link; Blogger takes too long to upload images.

BRONCO GALLERY

Monday, June 05, 2006

Where to begin?!

I'm going to have to break the recap up into smaller posts. It'll take me from now until the next show to get all the photos on here, so I might just upload them to albums and post links instead. We'll see... meanwhile there are a few of our own personal highlights on my other blog.

First Up: "Lawman" Reunion

"In 1970, lawyer and drag racer Al Eckstrand put together a Lawman Racing Team, consisting of two 780hp Boss 429 Mustang drag cars and six 428 Cobra Jet Mach 1s, to tour U.S. military facilities around the world. It was during the Vietnam War, and servicemen were happy to see some of the musclecars from back home. Of course, Ford also hoped they would visit their local Ford dealer when they returned to the United States.

Two Lawman Boss 429s were built, one for Eckstrand demonstrations in Southeast Asia and the other for use as a show car in Europe. The first car was destroyed at sea when an 8-ton ship container fell on it, so Eckstrand hastily finished the second car, which was flown by Air Force transport to the south Pacific. Over the next three years, the Lawman United States Performance Team performed demonstrations to an audience of over 240,000 servicemen."
(credit: mustangsandfords.com)

During a Vietnam tour in 1970, a young boy named Hau Thai-Tang saw The Lawman and was so impressed that he vowed to work for Ford Motor Company if he ever got the opportunity. He is now the Advanced Product Creation and SVT Director at Ford. He had never met Eckstrand, but the event planners at Carlisle put together a "reunion" and brought not only Al Eckstrand and Hau Thai-Tang, but the original Lawman Mustang and its current owner, collector and athlete Bill Goldberg.

I had the opportunity to watch this reunion. Eckstrand shared some inspiring stories from the Vietnam tours, Thai-Tang spoke about the influence on him as a child, and Goldberg said he plans to keep the Lawman chronicle going through himself and his newborn son, planning to pass the car on to him someday. Eckstrand was presented with a brand-new Lawman Mustang in red. The whole experience was incredible and everyone was moved, fans and guests alike.

Funny side note: Bill Goldberg was overseas when the Mustang went on the block at Barret-Jackson. Someone called him to tell him that the car had blown the plants off the auction block area when it was driven in, then held the cell phone to the exhaust so he could hear it. Goldberg bought it, sight unseen, over the phone. (More on Goldberg in a future post.)

Some photos for your perusal:
L to R: Bill Goldberg, Hau Thai-Tang, and Al Eckstrand.
"The Lawman" Boss 429 Mustang

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Carlisle Recap

As soon as I get the photos uploaded and the Lawman article written, I'll have a recap of the All-Ford Nats here.

Quick summary: BEST. SHOW. EVER.

Check back in a bit!