Get some soda and popcorn, you’re gonna be here a while if you read all this.
Went to the Cache Valley Cruise-In in Logan UT over the 4th. The show went from 1 July through 3 July. We went on the 2nd (Friday). The main show is always the last day, Saturday, and culminates with the City shutting down Main St. and all the cars parade up & down the street. It’s really cool, but with our town celebrating the 4th on the 3rd, we went to the show on the 2nd. While there were numerous empty slots on Friday (there were Poker Runs and other things going on), there were still enough cars to give me Car Show Jones. Here’s a small sample of the pictures I took.
We’ll start off with one of my favorites in the concourse venue. It’s a ’59 Desoto Fireflight Explorer. This particular specimen was a “100 Point” restoration so everything on the car is factory.
The first thing that caught my eye was the dual quads. On a frikken’ Desoto station wagon. Who knew?
It had swivel bucket seats!
Spoked rims.
Dual exhaust and plenty o’ chrome.
Another concourse car was this sweet Mercury Monterey “Sun Valley”. It got the Sun Valley name because of the clear Plexiglas roof panel. I believe this was another 100 Point restoration, and it was impressive.
Clear roof panel from above. I believe that is Glenn Beck in the background center in the dark shirt (more on that later).
And from inside. The clear panel does not remove. You gotta think this thing got roasty inside in the summer. Probably why there were only 1787 sold in 2 years of production. BTW, I wonder if he lost "points" due to the garage door controller hanging from the sun visor - definitely not period.
This Ford (Model A, I think) pickup was also in the concourse. It was very impressive. They stuffed a blown Ford 427 SOHC into it. Look at the engine on this side, you can see the supercharger, but no right valve cover.
From this side you can see the left valve cover sitting straight up. When I first looked at it I thought it was a blown 4 cylinder of some sort, really weird.
Then I looked at the mirror showing the undercarriage. You can see the right valve cover. They had to rotate that big-A engine to get it to fit under the hood! Think about the problems they had to overcome.
This 1934 “Bentley Blower” was also on the concourse.
I like to take pictures of billboards so I don’t have to waste precious display ogling time reading stuff. That way I can read them when I have nothing else to do. When I got home I found this to be an interesting snippet on the car. It talks about “Glenn” talking with Jay Leno. It wasn’t until I was home reading it when I put 2 & 2 together. You can see the big banner in one of the pics of the 54 Merc that says “Beck Racing”. Glenn Beck.
I was standing next to Glenn Beck when I took this shot and didn’t know it. But who cares? I wasn’t there to talk to Glenn, other than as the owner of the car, and I had much more to see and so little time to see it.
Crazy Rat Rod.
This reminded me of American Graffiti.
It’s not a legit car show if there’s not an AC Cobra present. This was the only one there on Friday. There’s typically a veritable plethora of Cobras at this show since the Utah club takes part. I’m sure the rest showed up on Saturday. Cobras are sexy.
This shortened 55 Chevy was interesting.
I seem to appreciate original or lightly modified cars. This 54 Skylark convertible was pretty awesome. A car like this (or the Desoto or the Merc) has to be a lot of work. More so than a tri-5 Chevy, 1st gen Camaro, early Mustang, etc. Those cars have a tremendous following and you can just about rebuild them with repro parts. Not so on this Buick.
The Skylark was heavy with chrome.
You can bring anything to the Cache Valley Cruise In. Especially if you’re not interested in winning any awards. These guys are now classics, but not a big draw. Especially for those of us who lived through them.
Nice example of a GTO. Clean and era correct with the Cragar S/S wheels. I like the look.
The early T-Birds were sweet. Ford messed up when they bloated them into luxury cars.
The pink Cadillac always makes this show. This model is the king of fins.
I like these. It’s a 31 Ford Model A. The pic doesn’t show it, but this thing had the most beautiful burgundy wine color. It looked like you could reach 5” into the paint. Best paint at the show on Friday, IMO.
Same car with a little more sun on it.
Everyone loves 60’s era Vettes. Especially with a 427 stuffed under the hood.
And how can you not drool over a GTO sporting a 6-pack? While a good aftermarket 4 bbl and intake will out-perform the old 3-dueces, when it comes to sound the single 4 bbl can’t compete when the outboard carbs open up.
I’m not even sure what this is, but I had to respect the effort. It kinda grows on you.
This 57 Chevy, I found out later, belongs to (concentrate now) my wife’s sister’s ex-husband’s cousin (or something like that) who, interestingly, won it at this very show a few years ago. Oddly enough it turns out my wife’s sister’s ex-husband’s
nephew won this year’s car giveaway – a custom T-Bucket. That family’s luckier than Gladstone Duck. I think I would have won but you had to be present to win and they had the drawing on Saturday. Yeah, probably not.
While I believe Bonnie and Clyde preferred to steal Fords, this Studebaker looks like something they’d have robbed a bank in.
In fact, it’s ready for some bank robbin’ with the machine gun in a violin case. That’s 1st class.
The 59 Impala is one of my all-time favorite cars.
And this is why. There’s no other deck lid like it with those flattened fins.
A couple flat-fendered Jeeps. In this shot you can see many of the open slots that would be filled with cars on Saturday. All the grass you see between cars has parking stalls laid out. There was a grundle of cars missing.
A beautiful example of a Chrysler Imperial rolled up as we were standing there. It rumbled with the unmistakable sound of a big V8. Talk about a land yacht. It probably weighs as much as the USS Nimitz. I’ll bet it’s like driving around in your living room though.
Finally a couple shots to give you an idea, hopefully, of the size of this show. There were hundreds of cars there this day, and hundreds missing.
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