Old car festival greenfield village

[henry's 31]

Congratulations to Jim and Ryan. Very nice Model A's!

[Jeff/Illinois]

Originally Posted by TerryO

My wife and I attended for the 1st time and thoroughly enjoyed it. We drove up from GA (modern) and it was worth it for sure. I hope to be back next year.

TOB

As did I. First time there it was great. I've never seen anything like this, loved every minute.

Saturday looked like it kept the crowds down a bit with the intermittent showers because Sunday with the clear skies, it was mobbed!Great crowd.

Loved the parade at night that alone was worth the trip! I'm sorry I didn't meet Jim Cannon or Brent or any of you guys hopefully next year. For some reason I didn't get around to the judged cars that much I guess because they were covered up Saturday because of the rain. That plus I am currently having a VERY hard time walking due to a medical situation that they tell me will clear up in about 6 months. Literally grit your teeth and bear it, not much fun pretty painful. Walking around about killed me but I wanted to see the cars. Loved the '32 Ford pickup and that '32 Three Window Ford Coupe, along with about all the cars!

I DID speak to a fellow I know from Lynn Center, Ill. who had his 1925 Willys Knight four door Touring car there, the maroonish one. Beautiful car. He's quite a card nice guy!

[Bick in New Zealand]

Jim, beautiful phaeton, is that green Balsam green?

[Ryan J]

Thanks for the kind words.
It was one of my best days ever.

[WTSHNN]

This was my 3rd year at the OCF and it was another great time.

We went up on Thursday, driving my '31 Truck from Chicago, about 287 miles one way. Went up with some friends who drove their '31 Tudor.

Friday we drove to the Piquette Avenue Plant and took the tour. Interesting to walk through the building and the tour guide was engaging. I know the museum is still in its infancy so I look forward to visiting when they are more established.





After that we drove the 2.5 miles to visit the Packard Plant. Let me tell you; its an tangible example of the rise and fall of Detroit. In the words of Bruce Springsteen, it's down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop. Didn't take any pictures but I got some interesting video of it all.

So we went from that to Edsel and Eleanor's house. Beautiful home and a great tour. The garage is impressive and we got to see Eleanor's custom built Continental, built with a tall roof so she could wear her hats in there.



Then we decided to stop by Henry and Clara's burial site before heading back to the hotel. Once we got back to the hotel I noticed I was leaking water, so a quick run to O'Reilly's and $5.50 worth of Bar's Stop Leak temporarily fixed the problem enough for me to make it home. Seems I have a leak in the lower pipe so that's something to address. Even got my girlfriend to drive the Model A for a bit around the hotel parking lot, she didn't even kill it and it was the first time she had ever driven a manual transmission.

Saturday morning we arrived at the OCF and parked in our traditional spot right beyond the covered bridge. The attendance appeared to be low. Seemed the 80% chance of storms kept a lot of people away. In the end a 20 minute shower had a lot of cars heading for their trailers. I took the opportunity to go down into the lower bowl and play in the mud with a few other cars.



Gas Light Parade is by far the highlight of the entire day. Seeing all those cars driving around with their kerosene or Presto-Lite lamps burning in the falling daylight isn't something you can replicate elsewhere. It also made it extremely easy to see who was running an alternator and/or halogen bulbs! The spectators came in by the hundreds for this and lined the various roads with smiles on their faces. Always good to see the kids giving the "honk the horn" hand gesture and folks trying to thumb rides (note; you'd might be surprised how many owners willingly invite riders in for a lap). The rain earlier in the day caused the fireworks to be cancelled so me and the lady went for a vintage carousel ride instead.







We left out around 1 EST Sunday afternoon and got back to Chicago around 930 CST. Ended up driving nearly 700 miles round trip, that includes nearly 40 miles driven around Greenfield Village. Somewhere near Niles, Michigan I rolled 10,000 miles on my odometer.

In all, this is a great event that should be on every car guy's bucket list. Make time to attend as it is a great event without rival.

Thanks
-Tim

[Jeff/Illinois]

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Tim there weren't 'hundreds' I'd venture to say 'thousands' at the night time parade AND Sunday! My first time definitely will be back greatest thing I had ever seen with antique cars. I'm a die hard fan of the Blue Oval, loved the T's-A's- and the few '32 Fords that made it in but appreciated and admired ALL of the old iron. Liked 'em all.

Stu had his '25 Willys Knight there, guy I know from back home here in NW Illinois. His second year at this event. Anyway he told me a funny story.......

He and his wife were driving around the parade route. A woman in period dress was standing along the street with her thumb out hitching a ride. He stopped, told her to 'get in' and away they went. She told him 'In the fifteen years that I have been coming here, dressed in period dress and hitch hiking, YOU are the first one that ever stopped and picked me up!'

I told Stu "She had to be pretty brave. I would have never crawled in a car with a guy the looks of YOU."