star car award antiqui

Book Update: Off to the Designer!

by Nancy DeWitt

The materials for our upcoming book are now on their way to Seattle! Since we opened in 2009, many of our visitors have requested that we produce a book featuring our cars. This ambitious project finally got rolling last December with several sessions held to photograph cars, car parts, vintage clothing and the museum's interior. At right is our manager, Willy Vinton, and docent Michael Lecorchick lifting the hood off the 1914 Woods Mobilette.

Many thanks to the all the volunteers who helped us shuffle cars, open hoods and move ropes, signs and stanchions. Ronn Murray, a Fairbanks-based photographer and classic car fan, took the majority of photos for the book. He did a fabulous job and was even brave enough to get on the lift for some shots (that's our 1921 Daniels on the right and the 1911 Oakland on the left).

John Katz, our book's editor and an automotive historian, author and former editor for Automobile Quarterly, traveled to Fairbanks during some of our harshest winter weather to examine the cars, do some fact-checking and help me with additional research. Thanks John! Your help and encouragement were very appreciated. Sorry I made you work next to that Auburn boattail speedster, though...

This soft-cover book will feature 42 of our cars and a number of our vintage fashions and historical photos. It's taken a lot of work to pull it all together, so I was pretty happy to package up all the materials and ship them off to Epicenter Press this morning. Many thanks to everyone who helped with this project! Hopefully we'll have the books in hand by July 1. Please let us know if you'd like to be contacted when they arrive.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance

by Willy Vinton

Sunshine, old cars and green grass were a treat after a long Fairbanks winter. My wife, Wilma, and I left Fairbanks on March 9 to head to Florida, arriving on the 10th. We checked into the hotel, had dinner and got some rest after 16 hours of airplanes and airports. The following morning we scoped out the concours grounds and inspected our '32 Cadillac 452-B Imperial limousine to make sure it was ready for the show. The car looked great and only needed minor cleaning, thanks to Sean Brayton and Red Star Auto's extra effort to get it ready.

We spent the rest of the day checking out the cars at the Gooding auction and making sure we knew where to park the Cadillac on the golf course. Auctions on both Friday and Saturday consumed the night and day; we left the RM auction on Saturday afternoon to get the Cadillac onto the field by 5 pm. It started with no problems and we left the parking area where all the transport trucks park, following a concours official who was driving a golf cart. Everything went well until halfway there the car ran out of gas (oops). With the help of the staff we got two gallons of gas, put it in the V16, got it started and made it to the field.

Sunday morning found us with lots to do--remember now--we had to turn the clocks ahead one hour, and be on the field by 7 am. Upon arriving we found the car was covered with a very heavy layer of dew, requiring lots of drying and cleaning to make it ready. At 9 am the judges came and inspected the car, asked lots of questions (luckily never one I couldn't answer--pure luck!) and spent about 15 minutes with us. At right is a view from the Cadillac deck overlooking part of the field before it got crowded.

Toward the end of the show our pager went off indicating we had to drive up to the grandstand area to recieve an award. Now that's all well and good,

but remember this is a gas-guzzling V16 carrying only two gallons of fuel. I drove to the staging area and shut the car off (conserving gas) then drove up to receive the award. We were presented with a nice trophy and ribbon for the "Amelia Island Award for the Most Elegant Formal Sedan or Town Car." Not only an honor, but also great recognition for the museum! After that I wondered if we would have enough gas to get back to the show field, let alone back to the truck area, but luck was with us and we had no problems.