Packard Motor Car Information

Concours d'Elegance of Texas 2017

Posted by Cli55er On 2017/5/2 15:38:43

I thought I would separate this from my blog and just link to it in my blog. this way people can comment on this particular topic separately.

Friday started with a Tour d'Elegance presented by Six Flags. We drove by police escort and I tell you they knew exactly what they were doing. we ran stop signs and stop lights and nobody got in our way. at one point, to make up time, we go on I30 and the police shut the highway down for us and stopped all the entrance ramps on the way. it was nuts. We even saw two accidents happen live on the other side of the highway. I can only speculate that they were rubbernecking.

We went to the Top of the Hill off of the old Bankhead highway in Arlington. there used to be a casino and gambling and mobster and gangsters there in the 20s and 30s. you can google it for a good read i'm sure. it is now a Baptist college. We met in the Tea garden and had nice reception and were greeted by the pastor's wife who told us many interesting facts about the place.

then we left for the stock yards. driving down exchange street was a spectacle. tons of on lookers, you would have thought we were the longhorns they march down the street twice a day. we parked and had lunch at Cattleman's in a private room. it was very nice.

Afterwards we went for a drive through of the River Legacy complex in Arlington, a huge nature preserve and park or something like that.

then it was on to Six Flags where we had a reception with free beer and nachos. the park was empty except for us. it was great!!

we went to several auctions on Friday and Saturday, where they were selling cars for pennies on the dollar and some for millions of dollars. my son was board after about 20 cars, lol!

Sunday was rise and shine at 4am to get there by 6 so we could parade into the show grounds by the Texas Rangers stadium. there was a bit of confusion here and it was a bit irritating, but we all got in eventually.

the car that beat me had over 25k in chrome work alone, you can read about it here.http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/car-of-the-week/car-of-the-week-1932-buick

the guy that owned it was very nice, but it was a bit irritating because this same car won this class in 2013. oh well it would have just been someone else there to compete with.

there were 5 in our class, so I beat out 3 others. can't complain. i'm perfectly happy with 2nd and honestly the Buick was a better car. but 25k in chrome alone on a car worth....ehhhh maybe 30k. (nada says 22,900) labor of love for sure on that car.

I did have one angry individual towards my car because he fully felt like the 120 wrecked Packard and he thought it was a horrible model. I didn't really say much to him as he got a bit flustered and started talking about how much better the buick was then mine. everyone has there opinion I said as he walked off. It was bizarre.

anyways. we got to meet with the judges, one of which I knew from PNT. Jeff Podmers. great guy and it was nice to see him and his wife again. I probably told more about the car then I should have, but I'm just an honest person.

The family and I walked around after that looking at cars and met up with Mark McLemore from the Texas Rangers and had him sign my Rangers shirt and take a pic with the car. Jeff Russell was coming and I was prepared with baseball cards and a game program from 1989, but we went to eat and missed him. bummer!!

the rest of the day was chilling and cleaning the car and bumming about my cracked head and talking with Flack on the phone as he calmed me down. thanks good buddy!

finally we crossed the line to pick up our trophy with my kiddo in the front and wife in the back. I was recognized as pretty much the youngest at the event and to have rebuilt my car from just sept was a win they said. it was nice to be recognized. I was able to tell some of the history of the car to the audience.

the trip home was at a lower speed, but the car got us there..and the rest you know from my blog.

overall the weekend was a success and will get better over time as the Concours team will get used to the new venue. this was the first year in Arlington. the previous 5 years were in Canton.

enjoy the pics.

Attach file: