Wednesday, June 06, 2007

More photos from the show...

...covering American cars from the 1950s and '60s. There were more cars among this group that delighted me than I can put up here, so I've picked some unusual and rare examples.

First, a 1953 Corvette. This was the first year of the Fiberglass Chevy; it was not an immediate success, as only 183 were sold out of a total production of 300...



"Dream Cars" were big in the 1950s. This Packard "Panther" was built in 1954...



...followed, a year later, by the Lincoln "Indianapolis," a somewhat bizarre design (though I freely admit to loving it!) with a body built in Italy...



A fair number of daddies bought Devin fiberglass bodies to transform VW Beetles or wrecked sports cars into shiny new sports cars. A few bought these 1/3-size Devin "Juniors," powered by lawn-mower engines, for their fortunate offspring. My father took me to Bill Devin's factory once, but bought neither a big Devin body to build a sports car for himself or a Junior for me...



Finally, from the racecar-happy 1960s, came this 1969 Plymouth "SuperBird," which had a special front nose panel and a high rear wing (plus an extra-hot V8 under the hood) to qualify it for NASCAR racing...



Next, some of my favorite foreign cars from Sunday, followed by a selection of cars and motorcycles that caught my eye but won no awards.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

They look like toy cars :)

All the photos are great. Thanks for taking us into your life :)

Anonymous said...

Some interesting cars! I like the orange one, even though the nose is so long!

Anonymous said...

The interesting thing is, you would not get those cars confused as to what kind they are, not like today! I know cars from the other eras- not some of these- but today, they all seem to look alike! Great Pics! Lou

Anonymous said...

The Lincoln Indianapolis looks like it has a pretty serious overbite. Still, I kind like it. Thanks for the education.

Anonymous said...

Those are some strange looking cars. Cute, though!

John0 Juanderlust said...

I kind of like the Packard. That Lincoln looks like the tires would rub when you turn the wheels. Sort of cool in an art deco sort of way.