Old Cars-Page 2
update 6/13/09: Sherwood 25th Car Show
update 4/26/09: Trick'n Racy Car Show, Oregon City
Today Sunday, April 6th, 2008 I went to what is billed as "The Largest Auto Swap Meet on the West Coast". Being from SoCal and having spent many trips going to the monthly Pomona Swap meet, I had to challenge that statement. I have been to the Portland Swap meet several times in the past and can say that yes, maybe it matches the Pomona Swap meet in size, but bigger? I think that the answer lies in the wording of "swap meet". At Pomona a vast majority of the cars shown there are just for display; car clubs and so on. Always a huge number of Corvettes, etc. And this is where the difference lies. The display here in Portland is not for show, but to sell; everything displayed is for sale! If one puts it in that context, then I have to agree that is it the largest "Auto Swap Meet on the West Coast"! In fact it is even getting bigger. This year in order to handle the number of vendors it has been necessary to utilize the adjoining acreage of the Portland International Raceway (PIR)! And that is no small area! It is amazing to see the volume of old and new parts, pieces of cars, and superbly restored cars here for sale.
As is now usual, I took the "35" bus to downtown, and then the "yellow" MAX direct to the EXPO center; total cost: $0.85 cents all day, round trip! The parking cost alone at the EXPO is $10.00, let alone the cost of driving, but then there is one small secret I have found, and that is that if I go in late (like 11 am on Sunday) from the MAX line, I don't have to pay the entrance fee! (has worked for 2 years in a row)! It is impossible and not productive to try and take pictures of the entire event. Actually it would be impossible for one to walk each and every row in a day, and that is not taking into account the tag-along event at the PIR, it is just too big!
Here are a few pictures I
took while wondering around:
A few notes: the 50' Ford asking price was over $50,000! but it is "full
race"!. Some of the items for sale, in fact a lot of them were rescued
from the Junk Yard. But somebody will restore them!
Why the picture of the Crosley? It has a "full race" V8 engine in
it! Didn't see any takers on that one, and why would someone invest so
much in such a project? But then, who am I to say?
Both of these fine restorations were sold and the prices they brought would have
bought a house here in Portland 20 years ago!
A lot of the autos here had CA plates on them which gives one the
idea that the trip may have been worth it to sell the car. Everything on
this row has been sold!
You may ask why the picture of the 36' Plymouth Sedan?
It was the first car I remember riding in that my parents owned! And if I
had the space to keep it, I might have bought it. Here is a "pan" picture
I took but other than using a helicopter, there is no way to capture the size of
the event.
Of course the sponsors have their websites also:
portlandswapmeet Here is a
list of the major swap meets in the U.S.
meets:
My little Canon camera also takes video and there was a lot of engine noise all day. This particular fellow with an old racer tried his best to talk me into buying his car. Sorry! *
On my way back from the EXPO center I was able to get a snap shot video of the PIR show. It was now later in the day and a lot of the vendors had left, but it gives you a idea of how large the swap meet was. This is shown on my YouTube website at:
My final comment is to listen to the voice comments broadcast on the Streetcar audio. It is in both English and Espanol! This webpage isn't a commentary on politics but if we have to have two languages on our transportation systems, aren't we missing something here? Like this is the United States; we speak English. Doesn't having the public transportation system broadcast in both English and Spanish encourage the migration of illegals who do not speak our native language?
Trick'n Racy Car Show
This was my first car show to attend since last year this time. Naturally I took quite a few pictures. If you double-click the Thumbnail, the picture will come up full screen. Here they are in no particular order:
This Saturday a huge car show was held in Old Town Sherwood, Oregon. The entire town was blocked to all but foot traffic and there were some 650 estimated cars on exhibit. Because of the size of the crowd it was difficult to take any pictures, but I tried. Besides the exhibit of cars, there was a "burn out" contest which drew a large crowd. I took some pictures of that with my video camera and have loaded them onto "You Tube".
see: Burn Out Contest
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My guess is that the Sheriff's car was obtained from a Drug bust.
The previous week I went to
a small show showing small cars. Not too many, but interesting.
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