Saturday, August 27, 2016

Jalopy Jam-Up

Last weekend, Ken drove us more than two hours north of Toronto so that we could go to Jalopy Jam-Up, a classic car event out in the middle of nowhere.  The venue is a fake frontier ghost town, but it has been so poorly maintained that you could almost mistake it for a real one, it's so dusty and tumble-down.



We heard about the event through friends of a friend, who know the organizers.

This car wins the prize for flashiest paint job.  Click on the photo to see the large version, so you can get a good look at the nude lady on the hub cap!


Every knob inside was replaced with a decorative die.


Old vehicles are much more bulbous than the ones made today.


I heard that Wells Fargo had been hit hard in the recession, but I didn't know it had come to this...


I thought we'd come a long way to be there, having driven from Toronto.  Apparently not.  Here's an Ohio license plate.  People brought their "jalopies" from all over.


Exhaust pipes, or hungry baby birds?


There were a lot of flame paint jobs.


I like this blue car for its understated cool.


That's a Mr. Horsepower sticker near the front wheel of the yellow car, below.  Ken got one for my mom's car, and she loved it so much that when she got a new car, she asked him to get her another Mr. Horsepower sticker.  He drove over to the house one day when she wasn't home, walked up to her car which was parked in the driveway, stuck the sticker on, and left.  He said the neighbours must have been wondering who the heck he was and what he was doing to the nice older lady's car.


So pink!  The roof is done with a sparkly flake paint, and the rest of the body is matte.  I like the hubcaps too.


No one does good tail fins anymore.


Some cars that weren't up to the drive got a lift to the venue.


Classic black.


We stayed for four hours, and it was a pretty good time.  We brought folding chairs and sat outside under trees, which we never get around to doing in the city.  There wasn't a heck of a lot to do there other than talk cars and listen to music, so I'm not sure how everyone was passing the time since a lot of people were camping there or staying at nearby hotels for the whole weekend.  From the looks of it, the main source of entertainment was drinking beer.

We heard that there was a drunken scuffle the night before we arrived, when a guy who had been into the silly soda found his wife, who was likewise sozzled, in a tent fooling around with another man.  The loud arguing and fighting that followed kept the whole camp up for most of the night.  Ken and I aren't fans of camping even under the best circumstances, so I'm glad that we weren't there. I'm also really not a big fan of porta-potties and no running water.  Thank God for hand sanitizer.

So, which if the cars is your favourite?  (The blue car is my favourite, followed by the yellow convertible.)

7 comments:

Vanessence7 said...

Oooh! A car show! Yay! I love car shows. I don't think I've been to one in decades though. My husband is ... not a fan, lol.

Did you notice? Dice car also had a naked lady handle bar above the driver's door, as well as the hubcaps. Methinks the owner has a fixation. Ahem!

I think I like the hot pink paint jobs the best, although the yellow and blue were pretty awesome, too.

Drinking beer - lol. Yeah, what else is there to do there, really? I've seen people who bring card tables and set up board and card games, but you can only look at cars for so long. It's a social club for people who like to work on cars, and if you don't like to work on them too, there's not a whole lot to talk about. I just like to look. My days of crawling under engines to be with a guy I'm dating are long gone. :D

Granny Annie said...

Ron and I spent most of our time going to tractor shows. They are not as pretty as these cars. That last black car looks like the car from DIRTY DANCING that Patrick Swayze drove. I dated a guy once who had a restored car like the blue car. You could keep that bright pink car (or whatever color it was). It would blind people who passed it on the road. Looks like an entertaining event. Thanks for sharing.

Abby said...

Wow, looks like a fun getaway! Those are some real classic oldies - it's hard to think of cars being so huge given what we ride around in now. I like the old pickup. And thanks for pointing out the naked lady on that hubcap - someone had to make the mold for that. Sounds like jalopy jam-up camp was pretty "entertaining" too!

Ginny said...

I like the pink one with the sparkly roof. The matte finish is different and neat.

Jenny Woolf said...

I like the yellow one. It kind of reminds me of the car in that lovely film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" although I haven't compared them side to side. I love the fins, I do wish they'd bring fins back. English cars never had them and I still remember the shock of seeing American cars like that. Wow!!!!!
What a strange contrast with the ghost town. I had to laugh at the idea of a renovated ghost town which was now reverting to a ruined one!

Lynn said...

I like that black one with the purple flames! You guys do such neat things like that.

LL Cool Joe said...

I agree with Lynn, the one ones with the flame is pretty cool although that look has been done to death a bit. I was thinking of adding flames to my red jeep and then decided against it, as I felt I'd be stuck with them for years, and what looks cool for a while ends up looking a bit tired. Like my clothes.