Today's weather was great. No rain, clear skies, breezy and
temperatures in the 70's. Great driving weather. Tomorrow maybe we can
wear shorts!
We made our way to the Gilmore museum in Hickory Corners (southwest Michigan)
http://www.gilmorecarmuseum.org/
and got there when they opened at 9 am. The museum has added two new
large display buildings since we were here last year . They now have a
main entrance building that has a dozen Duesenbergs and Packards on
display! The majority of the cars on display at the museum don't have
any barriers around them, so you can stick your head inside the cars
and see the interior. I highly recommend a visit to this museum.
On the large lawn behind the museum the Classic Car Club of America
(CCCA) was having their concours car show. We saw beautiful vehicles
from the 30's and 40's. The best one I saw was a beautifully restored
silver 1937 Railton sedan (British car). It had a sliding drawer that
pulled out on the passenger side that had a built in map of the area
(the first vehicle GPS?).
Driving away from the Gilmore museum was the most beautiful drive so
far of the Power Tour. The small country roads in this agricultural
section of southwest Michigan were quaint with the canopy of trees
growing over the road making a “tunnel effect”.
We made our way to the second stop on the Power Tour – downtown
Muskegon, MI. It was an amazing sight to see so many hot rods in one
area. On the local evening news show they said there were 50,000
people attending the show and 4,000 vehicles parking downtown!
We walked around the venue for a few hours looking at the cars. We saw
the autocross event but missed the burnout contest.
We got our hotel room for the night and found other Power Tour cars
in the parking lot (about a dozen). We spent the evening visiting with
the other drivers and talking about cars.
TRIVIA:
The 1964 Plymouth Barracuda was sold to the public 4 weeks before the
Ford Mustang but the term “pony cars” became popular and not “fish
cars”.
The front end of an Edsel (the vertical grill opening) was described,
in the day, as a “Buick sucking on a lemon”.
The attached photo was taken at a Muskegon parking lot of a wild
vehicle I saw. A John Deere riding mower with a 350/350 HP small block
Chevy engine!
- Mark R
