This was my first time attending this event and it was a real change from what I am used to seeing. The Paradise Valley Annual Car Show is held every year at the Paradise Valley Town Hall in Arizona. This event is for classic automobiles ranging from late 1920′s up to the 1970′s. Attendance is by invite only so I felt privileged to be able to attend this event thanks to my friend Travis who’s boss had 3 vehicles that were chosen to participate in this years show. The day started out around 8:30am where we met at the amazing home of Dennis Wise. Dennis has done very well for himself and has an impressive collection of antique and custom classic cars. This year the 3 cars that were selected that he owns are a 1929 Model A Woody Station Wagon, 1937 Packard Sedan Super 8 and a 1933 Packard Super 8 2/4 Coupe. I got the pleasure of riding in the 1929 Model A aka “woody”. It was quite the change to ride in such an old school classic but I must admit I felt pretty gangster’ish rolling in such a vehicle. No windows at all, jeans and a short sleeve shirt and a temperature of around 55 degrees in the early morning made for an interesting morning commute to the car show.
We showed up at the car show which already was underway around 9am. I heard someone say there were approximately 140-150 cars that were present. I grabbed both my cameras, loaded them up with some lenses and off I went to try and shoot as much as I could before the show ended at 11:30am. There were SO many nice cars at this event I just had to stop at each one and admire the details that each vehicle offered. I am a younger guy, so seeing these cars in person and paying attention to the detail in each car was really something. The hood ornaments had me trippin all day long, so many different ones and the detail was stunning. I tried to capture as many as I could with my cameras.
The event ended with a Police escorted cruise thru Paradise Valley where we didn’t have to stop at any street lights. The ’29 Woody Station Wagon was getting mad attention by people that were lining the streets watching the caravan go by. We probably could have picked up several fly grandma’s on the way (we had 3-4 extra seats) but we were all pretty hungry so we stayed the course where we ended up at The Hermosa Inn for lunch. All in all, it was a fantastic event and I am glad my homie Travis invited me along. I think I took 300+ pics in total. At the end I tried to capture some pics of some of the cougars I saw, so look out for those while you are browsing the full gallery. There are also some other interesting people I just had to take pics of. I’ll give you a hint for one of them…….think of the movie “Back to the Future”.
Here are a few teasers from the show, click on the images to see larger full res versions. You can see the entire gallery HERE.
-Chris
