SAAC Presents:
The Barnum Festival Car Show,
Trumbull, CT, Sunday, July 15, 2007 (This page created 11/8/2007)
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A FIRST-TIMER VISITS THE 2007 BARNUM FESTIVAL CAR SHOW...
In looking at our old cars situation over this past
year, it has been very evident that I've favored driving the old
'68 Bug a lot. I guess after all I had put into getting it back
on the road in the fall of '06 (following the September 10th
rear-ender in downtown East Haven), I've wanted to try to
"maximize the return" on my "investment." But
not exercising old cars, as we all know, at least periodically,
isn't a good thing.
My early 2007 summer season had been somewhat unique up to the beginning of July, in that I had gone on a Route 66 cross-country driving adventure with my family, starting out mid-June, and then flying back from the west coast to CT in early July--while the rest of my family (who all had "significantly more" vacation available time that I did), took the next two or three weeks to do some additional northwest car-touring, before pointing the car eastward again, for eventual return to Connecticut.
Anyway, in early July of 2007, I found myself with a few "open" weekends, when none of the family was around, no family functions going on, etc., and so of course my attention was drawn to the Coming Events Calendar to see what sorts of possible upcoming old car events I could possibly take in.
Sunday, the 15th of July looked particularly interesting, in that it featured a Southern Connecticut-area old car event that I had heard a lot about over the years, but had, for one reason or another, never been able to attend. That event was The Barnum Festival Car Show, in Trumbull, CT, nicknamed "The Greatest Car Show On Earth" (hopefully the P.T. Barnum reference is obvious!).
IMAGE AT UPPER RIGHT: It's our black '56 VW Karmann Ghia, in a front-row lineup that included a slick black '70s Corvette, and many others...
Added to my potential interest in making it out to Trumbull for the Barnum Fest Car Show was the fact that I still had a decent quantity of "Time Machines 2007" (http://www.geocities.com/tbirdsofconn/timemach.html) official car show flyers, thanks to the full case quantity that TM2007 Chairman Fred Klaus had presented to me at the beginning of the season. Knowing, of course, that the Time Machines show (7/22) was still one week after the Barnum Fest show, and that the Barnum Fest was universally rumored to be a "big deal," the decision became obvious for me-I would attend (yes, I also knew I had "Great Connecticut Traditional Jazz Festival Antique Auto Parade & Display" handbills to hand out-for the 7/29 event in Moodus - http://members.aol.com/cgextras/JzzFstFlyer.html - which, along with the TM2007 flyers, I "littered" the interiors or countless old cars this past year with!).
The weekend gave me the opportunity to re-arrange cars in the garage a bit, and so I also jumped at the chance to drag our old 1956 VW Karmann Ghia out of the garage, dust the cobwebs out, and get it prepped for a drive out to Trumbull on Sunday morning.
Checking the event web site a couple of days before the 15th of July, it was learned that the "easy" directions to get to the venue (Hillcrest Middle School, Daniels Farm Road, in Trumbull) were no longer in effect, evidently due to some road construction. So, I was glad I looked at the site, and therefore knew which was the proper exit to take off of the Merritt Parkway, to get around the local construction zone, and to Hillcrest. As it turns out, the Hillcrest Middle School is part of a larger complex that also reportedly encompasses Trumbull High School. It was a semi-convoluted route to get to the show field, as a result, as you had to drive around the back of the high school, and up a little access road, and then enter the show field at the back of the Hillcrest building. I recently ran across a really neat aerial view of the Hillcrest Middle School/Trumbull High School complex, which nicely shows the layout, and especially the expansive green, grassy field, where the car show took place. If you click HERE you'll bring up that view, with Hillcrest being the dark-roofed complex in the left foreground, the High School being the light-roofed complex in the right background; the car show field is the large green expanse in the right foreground that is bordered at two sides by the schools (encompassing what appears to be at least two or three baseball diamonds), and woods at the other two corners.
The forecast on show day held no mention of any rain whatsoever (there was a rain date of 7/22 listed on the flyer), although some "classic" hazy, hot and humid conditions were warned to be in effect. And the weatherman was right!
I got a pretty early start out in the Ghia, and was
perhaps one of the first 10 or 15 cars onto the field, way up in
the front row (there were no classes-cars were parked "in
the order they entered." It appeared that the awards listed
on the flyer were organized to go along with the
"laissez-faire" style of parking: "50 Awards of
Excellence," plus one each of: Best In Show factory
original, Best In Show modified, Best Engine, Best Paint, and
Best Interior, plus a few other special awards to be chosen by
various dignitaries. I brought along a camp chair and book to
read, to pass the time as the field slowly filled up through the
morning.
And it got hotter and hotter as the morning wore on! By the time the field was fairly well-filled, and I decided it was a reasonable time to go around and start distributing my flyers, it was positively blazing! But, hey, it's summer, and this is what summer's like--and we're at a car show too--so everything's cool (at least figuratively)!
Following flyer distribution (and I handed out a ton of them-I have to think that there were in the range of 500 cars there on the field-most impressive), I pulled out my camera, and ran around and tried to capture at least a few typical views for the scope of this most impressive show. There were so many beautiful cars-too many to try and concentrate on any--so most of my pictures are more or less "overall" type views. I hope you'll enjoy the shots that I chose to include here, and apologize for not being able to make too many more specific descriptive comments about the subject of my pictures! CLICK HERE to get right to the pictures section...
Around noonish, I felt pretty "well-baked" from being out in the sun for that long, and decided it was time to pack the Karmann Ghia back up and head for home. The drive home from Trumbull was "memorable" but not in a completely positive sense (though thankfully we had no problems or mishaps), as the little Ghia pretty effectively conveys the feeling of fear when being tailgated by big dumb SUVs-and there were plenty on the expressways at mid-day, I was soon to find out). But, again, as already noted, thankfully no mishaps-and we're go glad we got back home in one piece! The little Ghia received a nice oil change upon its return...and also a promise from yours truly to try my best to get it out for some exercise more often in the future!
I wish to tip my hat to all the people who worked so hard to produce this fun car show, including the Classic Nights car club, the Barnum Festival organization--even my own employer's credit union, which was listed as a official sponsor on the flyer! We were most impressed with this event, and certainly will put it back on our calendar for future years, and hope to be back again many times!
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2007 BARNUM FESTIVAL CAR SHOW PICTURE GALLERY
BELOW: Let's start out with a several overall-type views (which in truth were mostly the only sorts of shots I was able to get that day). Can you imagine some "classic" hazy, hot, and humid weather conditions associated with a view like this? If so, you'd be right on target...
BELOW: As you can see, all types and styles of old cars were represented at the 2007 Barnum Festival car sow, from '50s cruisers, to exclusive imports, to '60s & '70s pony cars, to various styles of street rods, and on and on...
BELOW: Another overall view, illustrating cars from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and more...
BELOW: It was fun to see the various years, types, and styles of cars all parked "together"--it made for interesting browsing up and down the aisles--"always something new & unexpected around the next corner..."
BELOW: Here and there amidst the beautiful old cars were folks chillin' in their camp chairs...
BELOW: Okay, I must admit a bit of a soft spot, both for antique Porsches, and antique flat-fender jeeps--and what do you know, beautiful examples of each happened to be parked directly next to each other at the 2007 Barnum Festival car show...
BELOW: According to my notes, this was a 1961 Porsche model 356B, owned by Hans Isler of Fairfield, CT. It looks to be done up in sort of an "outlaw rally" style, noting the racing stripes, louvers, and "nerf bar" type minimal bumpers. Love that "bathtub" shape!
BELOW: The spectators sure seemed to enjoy that beautifully restored antique Willys Jeep! From my notes, this was a 1948 model CJ-2A, owned by Mr. Salma from Monroe, CT.
BELOW: One of our favorite local vintage VWs, John Kelly's superb metallic blue '54 Sedan, also showed up, right around the time I had to pack up to leave. When it comes to antique Volkswagens, this '54 is as straight and correct as they come. Love that little oval-shaped rear window, and all the other "period" details. Great job with it, John!
BELOW: And to round out our limited coverage of the 2007 Barnum Festival Car Show, I had to insert this shot featuring our trusty little '56 VW Karmann Ghia. Looks like the guy parked to our left had already booked...and I did also, a short time after this picture...but definitely looking forward to coming back again to Trumbull in the future for this very fine old car event!
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RESOURCES
For your additional reference, I'm happy to report that you can also visit some related sites, such as:
The Official Barnum Festival Car Show Pictures & Results pate: http://www.barnumfestival.com/07CarShwPics.html
Another fantastic collection of images courtesy of the Blood Sweat and Gears car club, who were out "en force" at the Barnum Fest show: http://bloodsweatandgearscarclub.com/barnum_festival.htm
And for further reference, here is the official overall Barnum Festival site: http://www.barnumfestival.com/ - and here is the official Classic Nights car club site, who organized and ran the Barnum Festival Car Show: http://www.classicnights.com/ (although I wasn't able to find much info about the Barnum Festival car show at their site-it appears they focus mainly on a summertime cruise night series)
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