North Country Cruisers 21st

[Dan Hiebert]

Annual Show & Shine weekend.  This is the car club we're in, based in Houlton, ME.  Shoulda been the 22nd annual, but we didn't put it on last year.  On topic simply cuz our D24 will be there, and it's also on this year's event T-shirt.  There will be other MoPars, too.  To be held at the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum in Littleton, cant miss it, right off US1.  Ice cream cruise starts at the museum on the 28th at 2:00pm to Houlton Farms Dairy ice cream stand in Houlton.  Show registration starts at 8:00am the 29th at the Museum.  No entry fee, 21 classes, members cars don't get judged.  Silent Auction, games, etc.  Awards at 1:00pm.  Usually about 200 cars show up, but about half of those tend to be from Canada, from which the U.S. still has travel restrictions, so how many show up this year is anyone's guess.  I know we're pretty far from just about all of you, but there it is, just in case you're in the area, or get REALLY bored this weekend.  Photos next week.

[greg g]

Not quit enough notice to make the trip.Have fun, post pictures.

[Dan Hiebert]

Ok, photo time.  It was a really nice day for a car show.  Didn't get over 75 degrees, partly cloudy, and when the sun went behind the clouds before 9am it was cool enough to wish I'd brought a sweatshirt or something.  92 cars registered, plus the 12 or so the members brought made for a much better turnout than we had expected.  Silent Auction made a little over $1,100 for us for our benevolent endeavors for the next year (that's a really good amount for these parts).  As anticipated, no Canadians (a bummer, they always bring really nice cars and trucks), but there were some new participants from downstate and further north.  Enough babbling...

 

Event t-shirt, that's our good ol' D24.  The bridge is the Watson covered bridge in Littleton, one of two in Maine, and on the National Register of Historic Places.  Alas, it burned down in July a couple weeks after the photo was taken.

Gratuitous shot of our D24 in the pre-50's line up before folks started showing up.  The Graham is a regular.

 

Bob Drown would have appreciated this, from the Museum's collection.  Not an Oshkosh, but the same plow equipment that he was "wing-man" on.

 

  

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dan Hiebert
typo

[Dan Hiebert]

Next two are also from the Museum's collection.  They're a bit unusual, I'd never heard of a Hayes truck, and only vaguely recalled Brockway made them, too.

 

Aroostook County, is of course, a farming community, so restoring tractors is a thing up here.  Houlton was traditionally a "red tractor" area.  Fun listening to the farmers argue which tractor is better, just like MoPar vs. Chevy vs. Ford, etc.

[Plymouthy Adams]

our local swap meet sponsors dropped the venue and we have a new event sponsor starting this fall.  Your picture is a good reminder as our new sponsor also host the local vintage tractor and implement show same day but on other side of the facility.  This will be the first car and tractor event though again, different display fields.  Thing is you pay one gate admission and get to do both shows same money.  It will be good to get the event back up and running.....I reserved two spaces side by side and have a couple friends from out of state coming to visit and vend.  Only 8  miles from the house.

[Dan Hiebert]

On to cars...  First one is the Plymouth Scamp that our club's VP bought only a month before he was killed in a truck crash in April.  He's the fellow memorialized on the t-shirt.  The T-Bird is a beautifully restored example.

 

 

 

 

[Plymouthy Adams]

when they asked a farmer what he thought of the international situation...he kinda scratched his head and stated....might fine tractor...!

[Dan Hiebert]

I happen to like Hudson-Essex-Terraplane vehicles, too.  Almost bought this '29 Essex a couple years ago from another retired agent in Ft. Kent.  Only reason I didn't was that it wasn't running.  I know the couple that did buy it, and they have it purring like a kitten.

This car was a hoot.  Ford Model "AR" speedster.  Owner enjoyed giving people rides in (on?) it all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dan Hiebert
typo

[Dan Hiebert]

Something I like to do at shows is find the biggest tug-boat there.  This Lincoln was the winner this year, and it's "just" a two-door!

The only other pre-50's MoPar.  Only thing '38 Dodge on it is the body.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dan Hiebert]

This Packard was a newcomer.  Owner drove it up from downstate (@200 miles one way).

We have a class for vehicles newer than 2000.  It is, after all a "car show", not an "antique car show".

And trucks.  I've been keeping my eye on that '48 F-1, owned by one of the local farms.  Waiting for them to get tired of storing it every winter...

 

 

 

 

 

[Dan Hiebert]

Last but not least, "motorcycles", (Yeah, yeah, a scooter, but an Allstate scooter that the young lady who owns it rode to the venue.  There were Harleys there, but all of them were black, and I get bored of nothing but black Harleys.)

and the venue, the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum.  Originally a school.  A well run and informative museum that should be on your check list if you ever come to northern Maine.  The barns are full of antique and collectible farm equipment, and a few more trucks and cars.   

 

 

[Merle Coggins]

Someone snuck a green 'Dear John' tractor into the Red Tractor parking area. ? 

 

As they say... "Nothing runs like a Deere." But also remember that 'Nothing stinks like a john.' ? 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Merle Coggins

[Ron175]

Nice pictures - thanks for sharing. It really is a small world…even though I’m back home in the U.K. now, I spent my college years in northern Maine and travelled all over. Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Bar Harbor, etc. The winters up there were a bit of a shock to me though!

Heard lots of stories of many old cars abandoned in the woods up there, but never had the time to really go out looking. Found a couple though. Surely got to be some old Mopars hiding!

[Dan Hiebert]

We sneak a John Deere into the middle of the Farmalls and Internationals on purpose.  Put an Oliver in there a couple years ago.  Really gets the old-timers bickering...

 

There are a lot of old cars and trucks in the woods up here, they pop up rather unexpectedly since things grow so fast.  But they also "return to the Earth" rather quickly, and loggers like to run over them with their skidders and fell trees onto them, which is kind of annoying.

[greg g]

Was the All-State a rebranded Vespa?  I do remember seeing them 8n the catalogs  as a kid.  Think Montgomery Was rds sold one too, probably branded as a Riverside.  My aunt drove a school bus, she rode a Cushman to and from the bus garage regardless of the weather.  In winter she fashioned tire chains from furnace damper controll chain.  Can't see how that lasted but she only rode about 2 miles either way, but as always uphill into the wind both ways.

[Dan Hiebert]

You aren't wrong, the Allstate was Sears' rebranded Vespa.  

 

My Dad had a Cushman when he was in high school, we have many photos of him bombing around the southern Illinois countryside.  He thinks water freezes at 70 degrees, so I don't think he rode it much in the winter.  I like your aunt's ingenuity, my dad does stuff like that, too.