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Car group hosts fourth annual collector car parts sale
SELMA
— Car enthusiasts are circling Saturday, March 6, on their calendars so they won’t miss the fourth annual Selma
Swap Collector Car Parts and Used Big Boy Toy Sale.
Hosted by the Reedley Blossom Trail A’s, the sale is expected to again bring hundreds of people to the Selma Flea Market at Mountain View and Highway 99. At the sale, people will not only be on the hunt for a variety of car parts to fully restore their coveted classic cars, they’ll also have the chance to restock the garage with toys. With everything from classic car parts to used big boy toys — boats, recreational vehicles, go-carts, Sea-Doos, snowboards and wakeboards — people won’t have a hard time finding what they are looking for, they’ll have a hard time deciding what to walk away with. “There isn’t anything like this in our area. It gives everyone from car enthusiasts to people who are just looking for a great deal the chance to come out and enjoy the event,” said Alan Borba, co-owner of the Selma Flea Market, who is organizing the event as a member of the Reedley Blossom Trail A’s. The Reedley Blossom Trail A’s is a group of more than 30 local residents who share a love for Model A Ford cars and tour the Central Valley in them. The event will be open to the public from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on March 6, while vendors will get the chance to check in and set up from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on March 5. Tickets are $5 for admission, parking is free and concessions will be available throughout the event. Spaces are available for vendors. A space costs $20 to sell a car or a boat, or $15 to sell parts. For additional information on the event, contact Alan Borba at (559) 896-3243 or visit www.selmaswap.com. Woodies in the Valley
scheduled for March 5-7
The Central Valley Woodie Club has scheduled
its 2010 edition of “Woodies in the Valley” to be held on March 5-7 in Visalia. This is a repeat of last year’s
venue. Sanger’s Blossom Day Festival & Car Show
The
22nd Annual Blossom Day Festival will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010 in downtown Sanger at 7th and “N” Streets,
from 9am to 4pm. There will be arts & crafts, food booths, exhibits, point race, car show, entertainment, Depot
Museum tours, Sanger Library Book Sale, and kid’s activities. This event is in conjunction with the Fresno County
Blossom Trail, which is open from February to April. Along the 62 mile self-guided trail you will see the groves, orchards,
vineyards, and wildflowers of California’s heartland, featuring the natural beauty of Fresno County’s agriculture
and highlighting a few of Sanger’s historical points of interest.
In conjunction with the Festival is the 4th Annual Sanger Chamber of Commerce Blossom Day Car Show on Saturday, March 6, 2010. Staging is at 8:30am off of Academy and 8th Streets. The Car Show is from 10am-3pm, in Downtown Sanger, 7th and “O” Streets. Awards will be given at 2:30pm to the Best of Show, Best Muscle Car, Best Street Rod, Best Truck, Best Interior, Best Engine, Best Stock Original, Best Custom, Best Convertible, Best Paint, Best Low Rider, Best Rat Rod, Best Flames, Best Special Interest, Best Mustang, Best PT Cruiser, Best Mo-Par, Best GM, Best Ford, Best Foreign, and the “Art Park” Memorial Award. Entry fees are $25.00. The first 100 pre-registered entries will receive a commemorative gift and dash plaque. The Sanger Chamber of Commerce Blossom Day Car Show is a non-profit car show and the proceeds will go towards sponsoring community events. For Car Show info only call Mike DelPuppo at 559-875-4361. For festival details call the Sanger Chamber of Commerce at 559-875-4575. Chevrolet Nomad
By Jack Nerad
Imagine a time when things were going so well for the American car manufacturers that one of them could create a new model based on what many might view as a practical joke. And then imagine that the model that resulted from that joke -- the Chevrolet Nomad -- would go on to be acclaimed by legions of fans around the world as the ultimate station wagon, a car that turned the station wagon stereotype on its ear because it was so utterly cool. If you can't imagine just such a thing, let us turn back the clock to about 1952 when Chevrolet's reputation was, well, pretty much like Chevrolet's reputation right now -- a leading manufacturer of dull cars for the masses. The only difference, then and now, is that the Chevrolet of the early Fifties was America's sales leader, a position the brand would dearly love to have today. And, perhaps another difference -- in '52 General Motors had a vision for its number one brand, a multi-faceted plan that hung its hat on two things that American cars seem to lack these days -- great engineering and great styling. Like having great pitching and great hitting, that combination is going to win you a lot of ballgames. So it would be with Chevrolet. As 1952 dawned, and sensing that Ford was creeping up on his number one ranking, GM president Charlie Wilson asked Chevrolet division head Tom Keating what he needed to hold off the Dearborn charge, and Keating's answer was simple, "Give me Ed Cole." Cole was the genius behind Cadillac's high-compression V-8 engine, but somehow he had been assigned to running, of all things, a tank plant in Cleveland. Cole was quickly moved into the Chevrolet chief engineer post, and before he left Cleveland he was already plotting a new, high-compression 265 cubic inch V-8 for his new division. Of equal importance was the ascension of Clare MacKichan to head of Chevrolet design. Now there was nothing wrong with predecessor Ed Glowacke's work -- the 1949-54 Chevies were attractive cars, if a bit conservative -- but MacKichan was charged with turning out new designs that would place stodgy Chevrolet high on the list of a young man's car -- a big departure. Finally, one other piece of the puzzle was a full-size clay model that was languishing in legendary stylist Harley Earl's studio. No GM division head seemed to want to take a chance on the two-seat roadster that had been penned with an eye on the British sports cars that had crept into the post-war U.S. market. Without niceties like rollup windows, the two-seater appeared to be too big a gamble, at least until Ed Cole saw it. He flipped, persuaded Keating to get on board, and the next thing we knew a show car called the Chevrolet Corvette was being exhibited at the 1953 GM Motorama at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. The Corvette produced shockwaves, especially when it was broadly hinted that the little car would go into production instead of remaining as eye candy. But Chevrolet management held true to its vision, and the Corvette did go into production, helping to remove the word "stodgy" from any sentence that contained Chevrolet. Then, for the following year's Motorama, the question became, "Okay, so how do we top the Corvette?" This is where the practical joke came in. GM stylists decided to follow the original 'vette show car with three (count 'em, three) Corvette show cars for the '54 Motorama. One was essentially a prettied up version of the production Corvette but with real roll-up windows and exterior door locks. The second was a striking fastback coupe version that bore the soon-to-be-legendary name, Corvair. And the third was GM's Styling's inside joke on their buddies at Ford. It was a station wagon version of the Corvette that was dubbed Nomad. The joke was almost too perfect. Chevy stylists knew that Ford was right on their tail with the Thunderbird two-seater, so they threw down the gauntlet -- "Match this station wagon, guys!" The joke got even funnier when it turned out that the T-Bird would be built on the Ford station wagon chassis. Funniest of all, Chevrolet's practical joke concept car was an immediate hit with the show audience. Harley Earl, seeing public reaction to the Nomad prototype, sent a frantic message to the brass at Chevrolet -- "Get the Nomad into production!" And, quicker than you could imagine, it was so. When MacKichan got the word from Earl, he immediately set Carl Renner, who had been involved in the original Nomad sketches, to work on fitting the unique two-door station wagon body to the new chassis, which would also carry the division's all-new V-8 engine. The "Corvette Nomad" show car wasn't built on a Corvette chassis, but instead on a standard 115-inch wheelbase '53 Chevy chassis, so the proportions were right to build the production vehicle on the upcoming '55 Chevrolet chassis. Further, aside from the Corvette front end and taillights, the car was fitted out with all the accoutrements of a stylish coupe rather than the barebones '54 Corvette. Talk about all the planets aligning! Happily, the Nomad styling worked exceptionally well with the new design of the 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air. With its slightly bulbous hood and single, "eyebrowed" headlights flanking a Ferrari-inspired grille, the '55 Chevy is one of the classics of the era. And the signature Nomad touches -- wrap-around rear glass, forward-slanting tailgate with vertical chrome strakes and the fluted rear roof section -- harmonize beautifully with the clean '55 styling. While all the '55 Chevies are attractive, even the low-line models, the Bel-Air Nomad is, arguably, the prettiest of the bunch. That's as it should be, because the Nomad was also the costliest of the bunch. At $2,571 the Nomad was $300 more than the Bel-Air convertible and the conventional Bel-Air Beauville four-door station wagon. The unheralded and now forgotten Two-Ten Handyman two-door wagon was $500 less. Sadly, pricing would help spell the end of the Nomad era sooner than was expected. But the first Nomad was a revelation. Not only did it offer leading-edge styling, it also offered mechanical excellence -- 1955 marked the introduction of the soon-to-be-legendary small-block V-8 engine. In base trim it generated 162 horsepower from its 265 cubic inches, and when equipped with an inexpensive factory "power pack" of dual exhaust and four-barrel carburetor, horsepower production rose to 180. All this magnificence rode on the virtually all-new 1955 chassis with much longer rear leaf springs and a significantly upgraded front suspension that featured ball joints, coil springs and unequal-length A-arms. The '55 marked a sea change in Chevrolet, and it vaulted the marque into a performance leadership position it would hold for two more decades. Unfortunately, largely because of its high price and the limited utility of its two-door wagon body style, the Nomad was left in the division's wake. Despite warm reviews, only 8,386 '55 Nomads were sold, a tiny percentage of overall Chevy sales that year. The Nomad was updated to keep in step with the attractive '56 and '57 models, but sales of just 7,886 for the 1956 model year and 6,103 for 1957 doomed the Nomad to a quick cancellation. After that four-door wagons would carry the Nomad name, but while they were more commercially successful, they never achieved the cult status of the practical joke that became one of the greatest cars of all time. |
