Learning about Fords (and friends)

Sunday 4/19/2015

Today was the big day: Fabulous Fords Forever at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA! This show is one of the biggest shows on the West Coast and has been on my bucket list since… well, last year I guess. Not a terribly long time but it sounded like a hell of a lot of fun so I made a point to get there this year.

We got to the show grounds at 8:30 AM so that we could clean up our cars and wander around a bit before the show started at 10 AM. The unfortunate part about this show is that everyone is grouped by class, so all of the different years of Mustangs are in different spots. This means that I didn't get to park with any of my friends – major bummer. But that’s okay because I was totally swamped the whole day anyways.

I actually didn't get to leave my car to get registered until 10:30 AM! I had a bunch of people come up to introduce themselves – mostly other VMFers and StangFixers who knew me from the forums. It was pretty insane how many “Internet friends” I met in person. Must have been a couple dozen!

I spent quite a while cleaning Jane up, mostly because I was juggling talking to people and actually cleaning. But she turned out pretty presentable despite all of the road grime. Jane had eaten a pretty big dragonfly somewhere in eastern Arizona and its wings were all crammed up into the top of the windshield trim, but I left it because it was pretty silly looking. Other than that everything got the quick detail treatment to at least get rid of some of the dust. Special shout-out to my friend Dieter, who helped clean Jane’s glass and wheels! That was super helpful.

Eventually I was able to leave my car and wander around to see other peoples’ cars for a while. That’s the point of a show, you know! I checked out all of the VMFer / StangFix cars that I could find first and made sure that I knew everyone and their cars. From there I spread out to see whatever I could see. Half of the show was Mustangs which suited me just fine, though I did really enjoy seeing all of the other Fords present. There were a lot of cars there that I had never seen before.

This shot can't even begin to capture the sheer size of this thing. I need an aerial shot!

So here’s some pictures from the show – I didn’t take as many as I should have but I was far too busy looking to also take a bunch of shots!

I think this car was my favorite because of how ridiculous it was - a Mad Max-style 4x4 Mustang made out of a '67 plopped on top of a Bronco frame and welded together. It was just awesomely silly.

A really super nice car. Talked to this guy for a while and he said that he was afraid to drive it because his wallet was still recovering. Interesting to contrast Jane to his car - we had a lot of the same general modifications but way different executions for way different purposes.

His car had the better looking engine bay for sure!

Sometimes you just need horsepower more than you need to be able to see.

One of 4 or 5 cars on display that had 427 SOHC engines in them. They were very, very cool.

I liked the lace pattern in the paint on this car!

Interior was pretty awesome too.

A '68 GT500KR surf wagon, of course.

I just thought this was funny because it is the tiniest battery I have ever seen in my life on a car. This was on a 428 car... how??

Another one of my favorites, a '68 GT/CS that had been pulled out of the weeds...

...and given a giant NOS tank on the sly.

More than one tire in the grave on this one. The guy driving it was dressed up as a scarecrow which was pretty awesome!

Just liked the old school hot rod vibe of this one.

The most ridiculous roll cage I've ever seen in my life. I don't even know what is going on inside this car but it must be extraordinarily uncomfortable.

There were a ton of Pintos there! This one made me laugh.

Quite a few old racers as well which was very cool.

A really nice clean engine bay on a Cougar.

In the Cougar row... lots of great cars here!

This Continental was ENORMOUS. It must have been 30 feet long and weighed 6000 lbs. Huge!!

Never seen an Edsel before!

Just liked the contrast here - a Ford GT next to a rodded truck with a nice bike on the bed.

This copper paint was gorgeous.

What is this???

An Australian Falcon - liked the badging

An original '70 Boss 302. There were quite a few super nice cars in the Boss line, including Dana's yellow Boss 302, which he drove 900 miles round trip in! Awesome stuff.

We all met up for lunch at Portillo’s, a pretty famous hot dog joint in the area. Absolutely delicious and it provided a nice respite from the sun, which was pretty strong. I was quite warm but in absolute hog heaven. The sun and I are very good friends and cold is not really my forte.

Anyways, it seemed like not too long later that the show was ending! I didn’t get a chance to see all of the cars because I was so busy talking to people, but that was not at all a problem. Guess it just means that I’ll have to come back next year. All of us that stayed behind to let traffic clear out lined our cars up for a couple of glamour shots. It was funny, once we lined all of our cars up, all the sudden a bunch of people appeared to start snapping more pictures. Guess they hadn’t had enough of cars yet either!

Hopefully all of these names are spelled right and associated with the right cars... if not, I apologize! From left to right: Bill's '67 vert, Tracy's '65 fastback, Jeff's '67 fastback, Mike's '67 fastback, Ken's '66 fastback, Armon's '69 vert, and Jane! 

Good looking group of cars! Too bad 5 or so people were missing from this shot - but I guess that would have been hard to take a picture of, ha!

I asked some guy who was taking pictures which car he liked best. He said "this blue one right here in front". I told him he had good taste and that it was my car and we had driven all the way from Colorado to be here. He then said, "DUDE YOU'RE A LEGEND". I'll take it!

Eventually we cleared out of the show lot as well and headed to dinner at an Italian place nearby. From there we went for ice cream at the famous Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. I had the biggest ice cream sundae I’ve ever seen. I must admit though that I was super tired and the high-energy vibe of the place was a little too much. It kind of just made me more tired, ha!

Finally it was time to say our goodbyes. Goodbyes are always bittersweet for me because I am always ready to hit the road but I really do hate to leave my friends. It occurred to me as I was walking away that all of these people, who had no idea who I really was but had taken me in and made me feel welcome and included at all times for three whole days, were people that I would really miss. Sure, I haven’t known them for very long, but they still felt like good friends. And the prospect of not seeing them again for another year or more was more than a little depressing. So I put on some nostalgic tunes and let the roar of my American pony car – which has provided me with more friends and opportunities over the span of a few years than I’ve ever had in my life – transform my sadness to joy and optimism. There is nothing that a good drive in that car can’t solve.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading back out into the great unknown. But I know that I'll be back at Knott's again sometime and I'm already planning on how I'm going to get there. Best get some rest as I am totally 100% exhausted. Kelly signing out.