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A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Country Car Show.  I believe it was my third time attending.  This year, they charged a $5/car admission fee to spectators.  Previous years were free, but $5 isn’t bad.  I’ve spent more on something and received less.  I was at the show for four hours, so it comes out to $1.25/hr for entertainment.

The Country Car Show is a good show.  There is a wide variety of cars, from antique to contemporary, though the mix tends toward American cars from the 60s.  The music is mostly 1950s-1970s oldies, with a few modern hits mixed in.  The deejay/emcee has been the same every year I have gone, and he does a good job.  Music really does set the tone at car shows.  Oldies go well with the cars shown here, as well as at the Downtown Elgin Car Show that happens in the fall.  The Geneva Concours d’Elegance, in August, has forgettable music.  I think they play classical music and jazz, which would match the exotic, antique, and expensive (cost more than a house) cars.  Anyway, I overheard a European immigrant attending the Country Car Show talking about how much he liked it, especially the music.  If a car show had rap or hip hop playing, I would do my best to ignore it, but I would probably walk through the show as fast as possible.

Last year, there were about 420 cars participating in the show.  This year, there were only 330.  I don’t know if that’s because the $20 registration fee was higher than last year, or if it was because of the rain.  I think it was the rain.  It rained while I was driving out to Elburn, but it had stopped by the time I got to the show.  I forgot my sunscreen at home.  Thought I’d be OK, but the sun came out and I got burned.  Here you can see how the show grounds still had some empty spaces and the sky was dark at the beginning of the show.

I brought my Camelbak with me to the show.  It was 3/4 full of ice and the rest was water.  This was a great idea.  I had cold water all afternoon.  I’ll do this again for the car show I’m going to in Sycamore tomorrow.

Some of the cars had been at the Country Car Show or other local shows before, so I skipped them.  Usually I don’t bother to check out or photograph a car I have seen before.  Some other car guys on Flickr are the same way, so I’m not alone.  I also tend to skip cars that have been modified.  I’m not into hot rods.  I’m not into 60s muscle cars that have nitrous or a bunch of non-original gauges in the car.  I also get annoyed when I see an aftermarket CD player in an older car.  Fancy chromed valve covers bug me too.  I guess I am a purist and like to see cars the way they were when they left the showroom floor.  People can do whatever they want to their cars.  I’m just saying that I’m not into modifications.

When I noticed several cars had been modified in some way and that I was pretty much ignoring a lot of cars, I decided to start photographing badges.

That was on my favorite car at the show, a 1960 Plymouth Fury convertible.  The car was immaculate.  Everything was clean and in great shape.

It also had a feature that floored me.  A dashboard-mounted optional record player.  It could hold 14 records.  I imagine there would be quite a bit of skipping.  I don’t know how the needle would stay on the record while going over bumps, while at the same time not being held so tightly against the record as to damage it.

I had a fixation with hoods at this car show.  I paid attention to the hood scoops to see if they were functional.  Here are some non-functional scoops on a 1973 Plymouth ‘Cuda.  The inlets are solid plastic, and there’s no exit under the hood.

And here’s a functional scoop on a 1974 Pontiac Firebird.  Air can get in, and the ductwork goes to the air cleaner.

Another thing I checked on the hoods were turn signals.  Some late 1960s models had little turn signals embedded in vents on the hood.  Presumably they were there so the driver could see if they had their turn signal on.  A 1969 Dodge Charger example:

There was a 1966 Chevrolet Corvair.  Ralph Nader went after GM because the 1960-1963 model had supposedly unsafe handling.  He wrote a book, and there was an investigation.  The car was found to handle no worse than other cars, and there were other cars with a similar suspension setup.  Unfortunately, the damage was done and sales dropped.  This was the first Corvair I have been able to get a close look at.  I was surprised by how compact the engine was.  It is horizontally-opposed, as in the cylinders go left and right instead of up and down.  Similar to what is used by Porsche and Subaru.

A dragonfly took a liking to an Oldsmobile 442.

In the corner of the show grounds are Corvettes and trucks.  I’m not really into trucks or Corvettes, but I walk through that area just in case there is something unusual or interesting.

I’m not a truck guy, but I can appreciate this crazy 2008 Chevy Silverado.  I think the owner even said it was his daily driver.  Scissor doors, huge wheels, winch.  There was some talk about concealed running boards to try and clean up the look of the truck.

Corvettes are cool cars, no doubt, but when there are a couple dozen in one place, it takes a special Corvette to get my attention.  This 2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Carbon Special Edition, Callaway Corvette SC652 caught my eye.  The carbon fiber trim looked great, and it’s a Callaway.  As a kid in the 80s and 90s, me and the other guys saw Callaways as the most bad-ass Corvettes around.  I like how this photo came out.  I isolated the reddish colors while everything else was black and white.  Color Accent mode on my camera.  This resulted in the car and the flag being the only things in color.

This corner of the car show also had modern cars like Shelby GTs.  The Shelbys were cool and I took plenty of photos, but this P-51-themed mustang captured a lot of attention from showgoers.  The nitrous tanks in the trunk were made to look like bombs and there was artwork inside the hood and trunk.  There was even a girl painted on the side, just like on the old World War II aircraft.  There was also a Corvette with the Iwo Jima flag scene on the inside of its hood.

Somebody brought their 2008 Bentley Continental GTC to the show.  This is probably the closest I will ever get to a Bentley.

There was a Buick Reatta I wanted to check out, but there was a guy looking at the car who had absolutely horrid breath.  I snapped a couple of photos and got out of there.  The stench was too much.

Here is a pair of Hudson Hornets.  This generation of Hudson is awesome.  They look good and I just plain like them.  Both of these cars are owned by the same guy, and the convertible won Best in Class.

This year was the first time I stuck around to see the awards given out.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I photographed many of the award winners.  I guess I have different taste in cars than most people.

There was a 50-50 raffle, with half the proceeds going to charity and half going to the raffle winner.  A guy who paid $5 to get in as a spectator, plus whatever he spent on tickets, ended up winning over $1600.

A neat thing about car shows is that you quite often see cool cars parked outside the show.  The Geneva Concours especially has cool cars parked outside the show.  Here is a 1961 Oldsmobile 88 parked amidst the corn at the Country Car Show.

If you want to check out all the photos I took at this year’s show, check out the set on Flickr.

Now I will engage in a festival of battery charging to get ready for the Turning Back Time Car Show in Sycamore, IL tomorrow.  I’ll bring my ice-filled Camelbak.  I’ll bring my sunscreen.  I’ll bring my cameras.  A buddy lives a mile away from the car show; he said I could park in his driveway if I cannot find any parking closer.  I’ve read that a thousand cars come to this show.  Someone who went one year was like the 600th car to register, and it was only 9AM.  A news article said they may even have 300 cars at the show by 4AM.  I found some photos from last year’s show on Flickr.  It looks like there is a good variety of stuff, though there is also a lot of modified stuff I probably won’t care for.  I want to get there early to beat the 90 degree heat, but registration doesn’t end until noon.  If I get there too early, I may miss some cars and I would have to walk through the show again.  The Geneva Concours has everyone in place by about 10AM, which is great.  I kind of want to stay late so I can see the awards ceremony at 3:30PM.  But it’ll be so hot!  Amazingly, the show doesn’t have its own website, so I won’t be able to get the awards results unless the newspaper has them.  I like to know which car wins which award.  For some reason, that info is always hard to find online after a show.  I’ll then spend the next week uploading my photos to Flickr.  I might write a blog entry about my experience at the Sycamore show.  Might not.  Stay tuned.