Re: Car Shows and Packards

Posted by HH56 On 2013/6/13 10:21:27

I also agree with the sentiment and would add that in many shows there is also a slant toward what the judges and crowd know and are comfortable with. The multi make shows are, IMO, difficult to compete in for the orphan cars unless there are many classes and many prizes. If the show only has a certain number of prizes or classes, crowd pleasers are king and orphans usually get left out.

For many years there was a fairly large concours held locally that attracted cars from a respectable distance. Early on just about every make had a class because there were plenty of cars. Judges were car enthusiasts from various clubs when possible, and if more were needed, volunteers from the organization sponsoring the show were called upon. While every effort was made to pick and assign judges with a knowledge of the cars they would be examining, in many cases this was not possible just because of talent available. I know because I was a judge on a few occasions with cars I knew next to nothing about.

We were given a sheet with the things to examine and a guideline for deductions. Each car was supposed to be judged against itself. That was nice in theory but if you didn't know the car, ultimately it was not "is it correct" but was down to what you felt for the car. Am ashamed to say it but on those cars I knew nothing about, it came down to a matter of how it looked or was presented compared to the one next to it. I suspect that might be the situation at your show.

Our local show ultimately went away. It basically became the Tri-Five Chevy, Mustang, Corvette and Tbird show. Anything else became an Other and the others eventually stopped coming. Even the public got tired of looking at row after row of the same model Chevys and Fords so they stopped coming too.