This past weekend was the 46th annual World of Wheels show in Calgary, Alberta. I originally had no intentions of entering my Eagle into this show, but a few months ago the decision was taken out of my hands when my fellow AMCA club members insisted upon it.
So, in the weeks leading up to the show, my car underwent "Extreme Makeover: Eagle Edition" in three weekends in January and February. Well, maybe not all that extreme, but the paint got a much needed wet sanding and polishing, and the plastic areas down low were all resprayed with custom mixed paint for an exact color match. The black parts of the headlight doors and grille were redone, and the emblems were removed and retouched. I gave the interior and engine bay a good cleaning as well.
The big weekend finally arrived, and here is how my car looked on the show floor:
It cleaned up pretty well for a car that gets driven year round, has been through 26 Alberta winters, still sports 90% of its original paint, and has over 359,000 km (223,000 miles) on the odometer.
So how did I do? Well, I got second place in my class and a plaque to show for it!
Of course, that feat becomes a whole lot less impressive upon realizing there were only
two cars in my class.
The other car was a 1991 Camaro Z28, which also looked like an unrestored car but was obviously a fairweather driver and probably had 1/4 the mileage of my car.
The big downside of this show is that it provides no recognition whatsoever for anything that would be considered original, survivor, or unrestored. The Camaro and my Eagle were both in the "Restored 1985-1992" class. Huh?
Shows like this are definitely a rich man's game. There were several cars in there that easily had $100,000 sunk into them. In five years of ownership, I'm probably into my Eagle for less than $3,000 and that includes the original purchase price. I don't know what the actual attendance of the show was over three days, but I'd guess that about 20,000 sets of eyes saw our AMCA display. I was amazed at how much attention my car got, and how many people stopped to take a picture of it.
The American Motors Club of Alberta was well represented with 10 vehicles this year:
1961 Classic
1964 Classic
1966 Marlin
1967 American
1968 Rebel
1969 AMX
1974 Matador
1979 J10
1980 J10
1986 Eagle
There was also a 1968 American and 1974 Javelin not affiliated with our club.
Here are a couple more pictures, on the final day as we were taking the display down:
At the end of it all, I just got in and drove mine home while those big dollar guys were loading up their trailer queens. I'd say I'm getting the far better bang for my buck as far as enjoyment of the hobby goes.
Topic: World of Wheels 2012 (Read 11628 times)