Saddle up and ride to the sound of the guns! It’s time for one of America’s finest and most unusual vintage car gatherings, the Ypsi Orphan Car Show. Sunday.
The date: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 9:30 AM
The place: Riverside Park, 515 East Cross Street, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
The event: The 16th annual Ypsilanti Orphan Car Show
The backgrounder: Brainchild of Jack Miller, proprietor of Miller Hudson Motors (world’s oldest Hudson dealer) and founder of the Ypsilanti Motor Heritage Museum, the Ypsi Orphan show is the vintage car meet for all the makes that history has misplaced along the way.
Time may have forgotten these automotive mutts, but a diehard cadre of hardcore gearheads hasn’t: Packard, Hudson, Willys, Hupmobile, Crosley, Tucker, Studebaker, Edsel, et al. You know, See Miscellaneous. See Makes, Other. If you eschew the ordinary and embrace the oddball, this is your kind of automotive event. Of course Motor City Garage will be there. What, are you kidding? Meanwhile, below is just a small sample of vehicles from previous years.
We’ll be there with our ’56 Mark II convertible on display. My wife is singing the National Anthem and judging. Hope it doesn’t rain.
Great. I recall talking to you folks, most recently about your Continental. What a great and unusual car. See you there!
Which Continental? I have a few. 🙂
Har, you got me. I walked right into that one. You’re the people who collect everything called Continental. I was thinking of the Beacon — what a nice little car.
Ours is a Continental Flyer. It’s a massive 6″ longer than the Beacon and has an overwhelming horsepower advantage at 65 instead of a 4-cylinder 45 horsepower motor. Interestingly, the bodies are the same, just a shorter chassis, fenders and hood. There are a few Beacons motoring around, but mine is the only known runner in the Western Hemisphere. There’s a restored export RHD version in New Zealand and a Richard’s-bodied 4-door convertible currently under restoration in Australia. It was shipped as a drivable chassis with fenders and bodied in Australia because of their highly restrictive content laws and tariffs.
Thanks for schooling us on Continental Beacon vs. Flyer. Rare info, to be sure. Will the car be at Ypsi?
No, it was there last year and took the BOC for the ’30s cars. I’m bringing our other orphan, the ’56 Continental Mark II convertible.