Lots to see at the car show

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This past Sunday I went to a car show -- officially the Louisville Concours d'Elegance -- held at the famous Churchill Downs racetrack, home of the Kentucky Derby.

The featured brand was Aston Martin. They had several cars that were used in James Bond films, but the star was undoubtedly this one:

 

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It's the DB5 used by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. Or one of them. The current owner is from Cincinnati and paid $4,000,000+ for it. Really.

You can see the bumper extensions, the machine guns behind the side lights (or parking lights in US parlance) and the "Ben-Hur" wheel hubs in this pic.

 

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To me the most jaw-dropping car was this Delage, the star of the 1933 Paris Auto Show and the winner of last year's Pebble Beach Concours, probably the most prestigious classic car show in the US.

 

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Didn't get a good head-on shot, but here it is being driven. Can't you imagine Cruella de Vil pulling up in that?

 

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Another 1933 car, being driven almost silently, was this Rolls-Royce Phantom II town car (meaning the chauffeur is in the open and the owner is under a roof). It is a "Springfield" Rolls, American-made in their factory in Springfield, Mass., which operated from the early 1920s until about 1934 or 35. It was common for windshields to open for ventilation back then.

 

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A timeless, elegant machine.

 

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Here's a US based competitor, a 1932 Packard Twin Six (i.e., V-12). The first car I ever rode in was a 1952 Packard, when I was driven home from the hospital after being born! Note the large horns under the headlights and the little door ahead of the back wheel -- a compartment for golf clubs.

 

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For more coachbuilt British luxury, this 1937 Railton is hard to beat.

 

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It uses running gear from an American Hudson Eight, but what a difference in everything else! Note the pull-out map drawer.

 

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The rear compartment has vanity cases -- there's a hairbrush, atomizer, a bottle of aspirin, and face powder, I think --- and you can see the box marked "Chocolate." The boxes on the left are marked "Cigarettes" and "Cigars," and there is a Thermos for cocktails.

 

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A really astonishing survivor was this 1911 Inter-State racer, which competed in the Indianapolis 500 that year. Inter-State was located in Indy and in business for a dozen years or so. Nobody knows how the car survived...the current owner found it in a barn in California. It has a T-head 4-cylinder engine, cast in pairs, with exposed pushrods, and idled with a lope at about 500 rpm, I would guess. Loudly!

Imagine racing for 500 miles in those bucket seats with no doors, no windshield, and no seatbelt!

 

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1937 De Soto taxi, used in Who Framed Roger Rabbit:

 

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1957 De Soto Firesweep:

 

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Another angle. I am not sure if the swivel seats are original to this car...didn't they come out in '59?

 

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I didn't use to like fins, but they're growing on me as I get older. 1956 Chrysler New Yorker:

 

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Dashboard of a 1954 Oldsmobile, with plenty of gleaming chromium plate.

 

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A postwar Olds woody. '46 or '47?

 

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And the oldest car of all, at least in theory. A replica of the 1886 Benz that started it all.

 

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That '57 DeSoto is a DREAM!!!!!!!!!

~Tim J.