Featured Event Coverage The Vintage Car Show Photo Thread!

Not being nit picky at all, but genuinely interested in what seems to be a discrepancy. In the lead colorized photo the parking lines are lines and there's a curb/sidewalk behind the customs. In the other photos that are supposed to be the same show the parking lines are made up of dots and there's no curb/sidewalk behind the customs.

I've seen these photos before, but never noticed these things until today.
Does anybody know?

 

I don’t think they are the same gathering, if it is maybe there is a second group of cars around the corner because as you point out the lot is completely different.

the road appears to have about the same amount of lanes but I can’t make out any of the same buildings across the street.

I assumed the color photo is the event Ryan is talking about the black and grey tennis examples of the kind of photos he wants us to find and post.

 

I see construction in one photo. Could be that it was a regular meet up and the strip was being built? With out cameras in everyone’s pocket anything is possible. Is anyone who had those cars still around that we could ask?

it’s hard with one colorized photo and the other black and grey but I was trying to see if any of the same cars are in both photo sets. That could help I think

 

Add Chuck Porter's chopped, channeled and possible sectioned F-1 to the list.

Herb Glock from Kansas City owned it the early '60's.

 

In the "colorized" photo there are spiky cactus-looking plants between the parking lot and the sidewalk and perhaps the lane closest to the curb is a traffic lane (?) with no room for parking as in the black-n-white pix. The sidewalk arrangement is very different, too.
The Photobucket tattoos are as irritating as ever. I guess Petersen Pub didn't want to pay ransom money any more than the rest of us did.

 

IMHO the colorized photo could have been taken next door or in an adjacent lot to a car dealership? I don't think it's tied to the Thrifty show due to the large amount of "used?" cars along the street. Think about bringing the car show to Albuquerque (we need a good national show,) and remember the 100th of Route 66 is only like 18mos away!

 

Gotta be two different shows. The Hirohata is in both sets, but is parked by the Bugarin Merc in one and not the other. Neither the Bugarin or the Bettancourt Mercs are in the colorized pic. None of that takes away from Ryan's point, though.....epic small gathering with a high concentration of exceptional cars. How awesome it must have been to be at those shows....and I always regret I didn't make the Revolution.

 

Great idea.

Here's a favorite of mine. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the image. It would be neat to see a wider view to see all the hot rods together on this day.

 

One of my all-time favorite pics attached below. I think most of you guys have seen it, but this thread is a great excuse to share it again. I'm guilty of looking at this picture with a magnifying glass for at least 20 minutes at a time. so many cool cars and neat custom touches.....just look at the 5 year old El Camino even! Picture is from the "first" Street rod nationals in Peoria, ILL. at the Sands Motel, 8/14/70

 

Great idea for a thread!

 

I think the colorized photo is "THE" Thrifty car show. Here you can see some of those plants, right amount of lanes etc.. Plus there are trophies with this location.

The other photos with the dots on the ground are a different Thrifty. Different sign etc..

Hot Damn Thriftys was a hoppin place!!

 

Hello,

Well, we were/are lucky to have lived and played in So Cal all of our lives. Those parking lot car shows were abundant. Sometimes, just a gathering of folks out for a cruise and since it was at a Thrifty Drug Store, a hot summer morning led to a cool $.10 cent ice cream cone that Thrifty Drugs were famous for in those old days. There were plenty of Thrifty Drug stand alone stores as well as those in downtown Long Beach locations.

It was a treat for those ice cream cones of all flavors. They were the favorites from those times. Not only for the low cost, but they were plentiful in So Cal. No, 31 flavors at the time and even when 31 flavors became the Starbucks of its days, one in every shopping location center, it was more fun to get a $.10 cent cone at Thrifty.

The local high school parking lots had their share of car shows, impromptu and for special causes. A charity event, donated space from the school for their parking lots or football field during off season and prior to maintenance for the coming fall season, etc. all provided great locations for car shows, planned for such a gathering.

Jnaki

These days, car shows can be held at schools, as those places certainly have the large parking spaces. In the south coastal area, all high schools have/had huge lots. But, now, they are more attractive due to covered parts of the parking lot for the ever present solar heating panels creating a cool shade for the participants and the general public. All it takes is a contact and reason for the charity event. Sometimes it is allowed and other times, the facilities are used almost all year around at one time or another.

The merchants in shopping centers knew that it creates customers then and now. Everything possible is done to create a car happening. Now, called cars and coffee. In So Cal, two stand out over others. One is the early morning Saturday event called Donut Derelicts in So Cal. The other is the largest gathering in one of the newest shopping centers along the coastal areas. Cars and Coffee at The Outlets in San Clemente. Yes, the first has more traditional hot rods and the second seems like more sporty cars over traditional hot rods. But, at least, it is a place to gather for car nuts.

Note:

Back when we were younger, posters were hung on telephone poles to showcase the next hot rod show planned for a high school lot, a community center or shopping center in So Cal. There were plenty of them around as it was a planned event. Today, there are annual car shows everyone knows from 20 to 40 years old. Then the big places like county fair locations with larger parking facilities creates a larger event for old hot rods and cruisers to gather once a year.

A year after our 1962 high school graduation, the newly built Long Beach Sports Arena, (still standing and used today) was opened for general public use. The physical complex was connected to the old Municipal Auditorium where we were the last graduation class to use the facility. We wanted to be the first in the Sports Arena, but it was just being finished. The car shows started in the new year during 1963.
1965 LB Sports Arena
The latest news is that between car shows, boat dealers displays, concerts and new model releases, the 1962 Sports Arena will be used for a portion of the Los Angeles Olympic venue in various sports in the coming 2028 version of the spectacle.

Note 2:

“Another drugstore icon immediately follows. We see the Thrifty Drug location at the corner of Rodeo Road and La Brea Avenue in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, just a mile and a half from Crenshaw Center. By this time Thrifty, a fixture of the L.A. retail scene for decades, was well underway with a program to open larger stores in shopping center settings versus the traditional smaller street front units, although the latter type still made up the bulk of Thrifty’s then 100-plus stores.”

“Thrifty’s largest store yet, it was part of a shopping center developed by the company that also boasted a new Alpha Beta supermarket as a key tenant. As with the Owl Rexall store above, the store was built in conjunction with a new home office for the company (Thrifty was the third largest drug chain in America at that time) on the property.”

“The Baldwin Hills Thrifty attained instant landmark status due to its massive sign tower, affectionately named the “Trilon”. At 65 feet tall with three 15 by 35 foot faces (Weighing in at 12 tons, according to the Los Angeles Times. Did somebody throw this thing on a scale?) and a unique, funky steel structure design that brings to (my) mind some of Alexander Calder’s “stabile” sculpture pieces, the Trilon certainly served its purpose as an attention-getter for Thrifty.”

We remember our own version of the Thifty Stores lore as the best $.10 ice cream cones found anywhere. All flavors and more. When we were little kids and even many years later when our son was in his ice cream cone hunting mode as a toddler. The store A/C plus $.10 cones made a great summer day activity. YRMV

 

That TRJ colorized print is hanging on the wall in the hideout, what a great image.
I have only one picture to share regarding vintage car shows. It's of Jere Sheehan and his 34 roadster, founder and president emeritus of our Camsnappers at the "Yankee homecoming and old fashioned Sunday" in Newburyport, Ma