Why do I keep attending car shows?  Another one was held in Mundelein late in the day yesterday, Park on Park.  This time my wife agreed to go with me.  I always enjoy her company.  Usually I go alone with camera in hand.

I am drawn to a car show for the same reason I am drawn to a glass of Rose.  I enjoy the taste. I like the feel of the cold smooth shape of the glass, and am reminded that life is short, that the complex, astringent sweetness of life passes.  This life will soon be gone and the deep joy of this time, my time and place, will fade.  We think of time as succession.  But time in memory is also a strategraphic presence of all past times, all there in a ghostly fashion, immanently present.

That comes home to me when I spend some time walking around the street rods, admiring the engineering, the embellishment of the past, with the current technology of the 21st century.

What about these two custom town cars, a body style out of the 1930s.  Perhaps the Gatsby could have been the original owner of both of these?  Street poetry in yellow and turquoise.

The industrial age is epitomized by the automobile, the revolution in transportation entailed in the transition from the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile.  Henry Ford is a historical personage who will always live in memory.  Ford pioneered the technique of assembly line production and his Model T was made affordable for the common man.  Here is a photo of a Ford flat-head engine, the first production V8.

Another step forward in design ingenuity is represented by the Chrysler 426 Hemi engine.  A hemispherical head allows greater combustion efficiency and thus more power by comparison to other wedge-head designs of the day.  Whenever I happen upon an example of the mighty Hemi at a car show, I feel a surge of emotion as memories flood my mind from my teenage years, of Sunday afternoons spent at the drag strip.  The sight of chrome valve covers with the Ramcharger label, the orange cross-ram manifold mounted with two four-barrel carburetors, transport me back in time to an old race track.

At the show was another replica of a Dodge Coronet Super Stocker from the late 60s.  This one is left in un-restored condition. The patina of time is evident in the graphic on the door panel.  The motor in this one is a 440 wedge.   Wicked Angel indeed.

I recall a conversation with another hot rod enthusiast about the cost of a vehicle in the 1950s when we were both kids.  Our parents could buy a new car for around $2,000.  We remembered the constant maintenance which those cars required, tune ups, servicing grease fittings and so on.  How transformed is ownership of a 21st century vehicle.  A new car requires almost no maintenance.  It is a bit like owning and using a toaster.  Now days, a car meant is to be disposable at the end of  its service life.  Will car shows be around when electrics are the norm, when the age of the internal combustion engine has faded?  I do not think they will be around.

Finally a few photos of a true drag racing weapon.  This big block, blown and injected,  3 window coup is engineered, built for one purpose.  That is,– to operate at the limit of the laws of physics, the ragged edge of power, the friction of rubber on hot asphalt, from a standing start to the timing lights a quarter mile distant.  This in just a few seconds, –injector butterfly open, with deafening cadence of all cylinders firing, the chassis twisting with stress from the bite of the slicks, lifting front wheels off the surface of the race track….  Words fail and you’d have to be there.

I’d buy a ticket to see this one run.