Car Show

Let’s see.  A whole bunch of new cars in one place, and a few old ones to boot.  You can touch them, get in them, look under the hood and in the trunk. 

Of course I went to the Utah Auto Show this weekend.

Saw some Jaguars that were once again real Jaguars, not the overpriced Fords they were for a while there.  Hyundai has a new sports car that puts out over 350 horse power, that’ll be one fast car.  The new Dodge Dart doesn’t have any of the styling cues of the classic one, but still lives up to it’s name:  it’s practical, inexpensive and economical, and looks like it would be fun to drive. 

My little brother and his wife went with me.  we looked at a bunch of SUVs for my older brother – he thinks it’s time to trade in his 2000 Durango for something new.  We didn’t find many rear-wheel drive, 4 wheel drive (with 4-low) SUVs in a actual truck platform.  Most of them were all-wheel drive on a front-wheel drive platform, which is really good for getting around town in the snow, but not as good for hard off-road driving.

I can’t remember what year this came out, but I remember it being marketed as an off-road 2-seater sports car.  I did like the color, name and badge on this one.

Scion came out with their answer to the Smart Car.

It’s a little bit bigger than the Smart Car, and has actual back seats, although they are not what I would call roomy.  My brother pointed out that it looks a lot less awkward than the Smart Car, and I have to agree.

I wanted to sit in the new Corvette, but the line was too long.  From this picture my brother got, I think I wouldn’t have found it too comfortable.  Especially if the top had been on.

I did get to sit in the new Mazda MX-5 (formerly known as the Miata), and found the same problem I had when I was going to buy one when they first came out.  Sitting in a comfortable position, the top frame of the windshield was right at my eye level.

I fit a lot better in the VW Bug convertible.

But I could never own one, because only a double-amputee could ride in the back seat when I was driving.

The real reason I went was to go see the new Jeep Wranglers.  I love mine, but I’ve been thinking about getting a new one.  They replaced the old crappy V-6 with a new one that is much better.  It comes with a 6-speed manual transmission and a 2-piece hard top that gives a targa top effect.

My brother test drove one and says it’s still built as rugged as the one I have, which is what I want.  My requirements would include the manual transmission and hardtop in the Willey’s trim.  I’m not sure what color I want, you can check out the different possibilities, seen at our property, here.  Check them out at Arches national Park too, then come back and let me know which color you like the best.

Did someone say “Car Show”?

I got this text message from Mrs. Gearhead this morning;

Just an fyi, there is a car show at granite high today :) let me know if you need directions.

My response was “thanks, smartass”, since I taught at that school for three years until they closed it down just a couple years ago. (If I need directions).

So, of course I went, and even ran into a group of ex-students that I taught there.

One of them had entered his old Desoto in the show.

On either side of his Desoto were his parent’s his-n-hers 65 Ford LTD convertibles.

I got there in time to see this 71 LTD convertible drive off, and drool a little bit.

Of course there were cars other than LTDs, like this Mercury Comet with matching target finders on each fender.

The mayor of South Salt Lake (or I should say her 6 year old son) chose this Dodge Super-Bee for the “Mayor’s Choice” award.

I stuck around for a while and the ex-students and I reminisced over old times.  They had been in my class when I taught at the Junior High close by, and then joined me again when they came to the High School, so we had a lot of good times to go over.   These five windows on the main floor were my classroom windows.

Well, you know I never miss a good car show, or even a bad one, that I don’t absolutely have to miss.  It was a fun day, looking at cars and catching up on what some now grown up (well, 18 yrs old) ex students are up to.

Two car shows and a sunset.

A couple of days ago I posted about a British Car Show that I went to.  You probably saw the pictures I took.  Well, I posted that before The Gearheads called me to let me know of a Datsun* Show that evening at the south end of the valley.  Some of you may find this hard to believe, but I went to both car shows.

On the way home I noticed some smoke coming from even further south, so I decided to investigate.  I got a couple good pictures of what is probably a wildfire, unfortunately it looked pretty close to some homes.

The wildfire also made me think “Hmm, ought to be a pretty good sunset tonight”, which is true when we have anything polluting the valley, even natural pollution.  So I went and grabbed my tripod and headed up to the east bench to get some sunset pictures.  Here are the pictures from the second car show, the fire and the sunset.

		Second Car Show and a sunset VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

* For those of you too young to remember the Datsun, they are what you now know as a Nissan.  Sometime in the 80’s Datsun decided to go with their corporate name and for a couple years their cars were badged with Datsun by Nissan, then Nissan with a small Datsun below and finally lost the Datsun name all together.

One if by land…

Got a text from a friend of mine that I infected with the old car bug about 20 years ago.  She used to view cars much like a refrigerator, simply an appliance to do a job for humans.

		1973 MGB VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Then I bought my 1970 Ford LTD Convertible, and she was hooked.  Now she owns her daily driver and a 1973 MGB (like the one in the gallery above) and a 1980’s convertible Rabbit.

Anyway, she was telling me about a British car show down at Liberty Park.  So I figured, what better way to celebrate my last weekend before us teachers have to start showing up at school, than to go look at a bunch of cool British vehicles.

Here are the pictures.  The first set is completely of the 1973 MGB that I took for my friend to motivate her on the restoration of her’s.  The second set are the 80 best of the 550 pictures I took there.  And special thanks to my little brother, Mr. Gearhead, who showed me how to take more interesting pictures of cars, just by doing it himself.

		The British are coming VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL