Worthing Sunny Sunday Car Show (yanks!)

[Lucky]

Right, here we go then. For background, this is the long-running show that used to be called "Sunny Sunday" and now goes by a rather preposterous and ponderous name along the lines of "The Worthing American Car and Hot Rod Show". Needless to say, everyone still calls it Sunny Sunday...

...and it's like magic, cos it's always sunny! I've never known it to rain on the day, wish the same charm extended to the Pod! It's held on the Steine which is a little walled green on the seafront in the Town Centre, no bigger than a football field, but manages to hold a surprising number of cars. This is an advantage if you want to wander around looking at lots of cars but a nightmare if you want to take pictures of them, because they're so jammed in tight it's almost impossible to take pics without hordes of lumpen proleteriat blundering into the way lol. Oh, how I suffers for me art.

Once the show finishes off (around four p.m.) the cars all get to drive off past the assembled crowds and make some noise through the town centre. Despite being pretty tiny it's a great day out, there's always a fair and market on the seafront the same weekend and there are vintage busses doing town tours and all that old malarkey. All the local rude bois wit their cool whips come out and parade around too. Some more cool than others, but it all adds to the atmosphere as they troll round the square; I've seen Astons, Lambos, any number of Porkers turn up just for the craic.

The show cars, as the title suggests, tend to be big Yank tanks mostly from the 50 and 60s, but with a smattering of other stuff amongst them, usually a few bikes as well. But enough words, you can see what the cars look like any minute now. In no especial order of funkiness;

errrr, shall we start alphabetically with errrm... an Anglia? hey, don't be like that, it's not disappointing! It looks like Kermit!


Oh, all right, be like that. Maybe not the most auspicious start... how about "A" is for "Aston"? This fella just rocked up in his Volante and pottered around a few times making some fantastic noise. Fair play


After a while a big Datsun came to play with him. This is the nice thing about the day, this sort of thing happens a lot and the Rozzers just watch and smile so long as nothing too lairy goes on


Was that better? Good. OK then, "B" is for......


































Beetle! Mwahahahahaha



Dang, how did that happen; I meant to say Bel Air, Bel Air, dammit! I am taking this seriously, honest. Look, it's a BelAir, two door in red, the one you want!


Reckon the interior might get tiring on a sunny day though. It's [FONT="Arial Black"]RED[/FONT]! Like really, really [FONT="Arial Black"]RED![/FONT]


Pretty cool finnage


Up until the day, I'd have thought a red two-door was the archetype of the BelAir, certainly it's the one everyone seems to lust over (NOT that big yellow taxi they restored on Wheeler Dealers lol) and I'd have agreed. That was before I saw this one, though


Would you like a closer look?


Loads of cool stuff, Braid billet wheels for example;


But it was the colour that did it for me, in the sun it's beautiful. Not a bad "stance" (*spits*) either


More epic finnage (there's a lot of this about lol)


OK, I got away with the Beetle (I think) so let's try this. Arguably a better use of a Beetle engine than putting it in a Beetle.


I can never see things like this without having Seventies flashbacks and hearing the theme from The Monkees in my head. Or maybe the Hair Bear Bunch, I dunno....


It's named after one of my fave puddings, too. Although I've a feeling they've misspelled it?



so, movin on. C must be for...


















....oh, come on, you must know






















Bleeding obvious, innit?


Not the nicest colour evar perhaps and I feel this one's seen a shedload of pug in it's life, but a Charger is a Charger is a Charger. If you see what I means


...hang on, what's that in the foreground? Looks like Ramon from Cars (no, not that Ramon! ) , but that starts with an I doesn't it? Ahhhhh, has he lost it already!?


From the sublime to the ridiculous and this simply gargantuan Cadillac 62 series from 1950-something


In fact, "gargantuan" almost doesn't do it justice, massive great bloated thing. Proving Caddy didn't just do fins, they also did odd stumps like the ears on a burns victim


Shiny shiny. See, we're still on "C", too? You can relax, it's all copacetic and under control


I know I bang on about it all the time, but one of the things I like best about American cars is that they all had their own identity, not just marque but model to model as well. That's one of the reasons I like Rexes, they're not just Mazdas, they're RX-7s, and the FD is an efini as well with its own logo and everything so that's more than three times as good as anything else. Anyway, here's a 1950-something Caddy Type 62 bonnet emblem. Mmmm, jet-y


Chevrolet slut errr I mean bomber art homage


Here's an old Dagenham dustbin unlike many you're gonna see pull up next to you at the lights. If one like this does, my advice would be leave it hahaha. If Mad Max had been filmed in Essex...


"C" of course is also for "Pontiac". Chieftan, that is. Not to be confused with the old Main Battle Tank of the same name, which actually was slightly smaller, lighter and handled better than a Pontiac Chieftan lol


Big!


'kinell, it's a bit bloody lovely though isn't it?


See? Marque/model identity


It's even got an enamelled Pontiac Indian embelm in the grille. And man, that's a lot of grille!


Nice to see whitewalls still rockin on the block


One of those British American cars, a Zodiac (ask your dad!). This is the one I always think looks like it's got a hare lip. MkII is it? Kwol, anyway


Hah! That fooled you, a "Z", didn't it!? (Actually, it's cos when I was editing the pics I couldn't remember what it was and labelled it as a Consul, even though I knew it wasn't). I had to put one of these in as homage to my mate Rich/Phil and his ten-year build. Mercury Cougar, a year older than his as a '68 and nowhere near as nice. Still pretty damn nice, mind


Wish people would leave their windows down, it's make it a lot easier to get pics of the interior!


Bridging the gap from C to D rather neatly is this


A Dodge Coronet. Y'see? How good am I? Lol. It's an early one, late 50s before they became Charger-like musclecars. Hence the fins and rocket thruster lights, which I love

[Lucky]

You just know, given my RX-7 perversion that somehow M will turn out to be for Mazda, don't you? But which one.... now that would be telling lol

Anyway, where were we? Well, a little history quiz for you: before DB stood for Aston Martin's David Brown (or even David Brown's Aston Martin IYSWIM) they stood for?....


Get it? Yeah, easy innit.


The Dodge Brothers Factory of Detroit. Pretty rare to see one as old as this baby though. It looks like the bastard child of a pram, a Model T and a load of random ironmongery from the scrappy. Probably close to what it was made from


I mean, check out that roof! They were tough in them days, motorists! Must be bloody freezing in the middle of a Michigan winter


Funky instruments, I still can't work out how the speedo operates! Like the massive ammeter, like that was the most vital instrument? "Quick, Aloysius, we would seem forsooth to be running out of electricity! Fetch some more forthwith lest we become stranded in this foul winter and freeze unto death!"


"hood" mascot stolen from Dodge Bro Jr's Monopoly set


On to another bonkers mad Dodge
#

I have an immense amount of love for this car. Besides the fact it looks like it would serial kill you and everyone you've ever met just for the fun of it


We saw it run at the Brighton Speed Trials last year where it obliterated its diff in one of the ugliest episodes of automotive self-harm I've ever witnessed. It was horrible, the poor thing jumped about a foot in the air and made the most sickening noises. Every single face in the crowd wore the same expression, like when they show a programme about open-cast-mine gonad surgery on the telly when you're eating your dinner and you pull that face that goes like "Euwwwwwww". Yeah, that face. Sounded like a bag of gravel in a washing machine. Really made up to see it back and looking as mad tough as ever


I mean, how much goddamned car do you need just to haul two people around?


Nice bit of "modern" tech. Modern-ish anyway. Supertrapp silencers have to be more modern than a '47 Coupe. I think


What do I keep saying about the brand identity? Y'see


Is this one of the first versions of the Dodge Ram emblem? Not sure when they started with it


Tuff


Right, moving on to "E" and as we all know, "E" is for "Vulva"


The Edsel, the great white hope of Ford, a range of par excellence cars named in honour of Henry's dead son that was going to decimate all before them. Unfortunately, they neglected to factor in that people didn't want a car with a metal representation of the female genatalia moulded into the grille. The kinder folk labelled it the "Horse's Collar" but you still knew what they meant. The entire range of Edsels, from coupe to sedan and even wagon, was a failure in every repsect and soon fizzled out after decreasing sales figures year on year


Of course, with our modern eyes they look fantastic, an expression of exuberance and confidence modern car designers can't even dream of approaching


From the Wurlitzer rear end


to the gonch errrrr... distinctive front treatement


Bonkers. But glorious insanity


Right, so still on the subject of Edsels then, here's something a bit different;


Nicely finished/restored pickup model, yeah?


...except that Ford never offered a pickup in the Edsel range AFAIK. It looks like this started life as a wagon and has been converted. Definitely a proper job! The engine's hardly standard either


With typical Ford (the person, not the company) swagger, the Edsel badging included an "E" logo bestriding the entire world! Toned down a bit on this later model but you can see it in full wonderful arrogance on the gree/white one


Typical 50's rocket-thruster light treatment


And what a fantastic dash, it's like a cross between a 50's juke box and an Art Deco movie theatre!


F must be for Firebird, and fortunately there was a nice early one so we're excused Smokey and the Bandit excess (for now)


I've got a definite thing for the rear lights on these, I love the long narrow frenched-in look. What I need is the slatted headlights from a Z28 Camaro and the rears from one of these, and something with an 8-litre engine in between


I think I need to make the acquaintance of this lady more often


and F is also for (needless to say given this is a Hot Rod show as well) flames


and flake, as in the metalflake sort


and even furry dice. How cool. Errrrrm


and also, just to prove the ubiquitous F100 isn't the only Ford pickup


Lovely colour, this. Brown is definitely back! Or is it bronze? Maybe minke? ...insert "do you have a license for that minkey" joke here...


G can only be one thing, really; Galaxie. Almost one horsepowers per cubic inch!

[Lucky]

H brings us to a bit of a change of pace from the cars


No, it's not a close-up of Wal-E, of course. It's a bit of Harley. Specifically, the sucky bit


I've always been into sportsbikes myself but have a long-held sneaking respect for Big Twins, especially ones as impractical and well-finished as this lowrider! See? Massive open primary Gilmer conversion leaves you nowhere to put your left leg but looks excellent (chaindrive conversion too)


Humongous carb intake setup leaves you nowhere to put your right leg. Wonderful


Doesn't it look well, though?


Slightly more traditional chop Harley sat alongside, complete with springer front end


and the world's best ever kickstart! Anyone who's ever had to kick over a litre-plus twin from cold will understand exactly why this is! (Sorry, moderator dudes. Please don't ban me!)


Moar metalflake, lovely. Oldskool tank stencilling FTW


I suspect you've already got an inkling what I stands for, since it sneaked into an earlier pic. Here's a little teaser


LOOK! It's Ramone from Cars! It's even got his little moustache thing!


A proper, bonkers-finned '59 Impala. How pimptastic is that!


It just goes on for ever


I love this car simply because it's so excessive, so imperiously overblown that I can't help it. I couldn;t decide which angle I liked best, so here's another couple. Believe me, given the crowds and how tight everything was packed in, it took a lot of patience to get a car this massive in-shot without someone blundering into the way




J, perhaps surprisingly in this context, is for Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag


I've no idea what the bodykit on this is, maybe TWR? but that doesn't seem right in my mind. Perhaps someone can enlighten me? Looks hard as


Shiny shiny wheels with natty Jaaaaaaaaag logos on the knock-offs are proper, too


L, rather surprisingly, is for Lambretta


In actual fact, there's usually quite a posse of sccoter bois at this show, and they were seriously down in numbers this year. This is probably the best of the bunch. Much nicer than an equivalent Vespa and also much more valuable/collectable nowadays. Or so I'm told by a colleague who collects them lol.


M is for Manta. Oh yes


One owner from new, and it's bloody immaculate (the car, not the owner). Unfortunately for us he insists on using it as a big orange table to display all the trophies it's won, which makes it slightly disappointing to photograph


M is also for random Maserati. This is another local boy with much cash who felt like popping down to drive around and show off his nice car without actually being anything to do with the show. Like all Masers of this period, it sounds incredible, like an orchestra


And while we're on the topic of random locals turning up on spec, I did promise you a Mazda. Bet you didn't guess which sort correctly, though hahaha


In fact, now I think about it, M is for loads of things which aren't necessarily the first car that springs to mind when you're at an American car show...


Funny to think this big ol bus was once the fastest way of getting to hospital. It's bell still works as well!


Here's something a bit unusual, too;


Can you tell what it is yet? lol. Shall I pull back a bit?


If you guessed Mercury then well done you. If you doubled up on the Ms and got Monterey then double plus well done. If you got '59 Monterey then you're cheating, stop looking on Google before answering, you're only cheating yourself in the long run y'know. Mmmm, squashy;


Hell of a thing though, innit! Not content with the almost-passe rocket tailight thing, they actually included a rocket into the side mouldings as well;


Kerb feelers an all


It's bloody huge, but what a beast! Very stately and serene as it wallows errrrr, wafts along!


N is for...

Yeah, I know you've already twigged I'm gonna hit a brick wall when we get to X, but I'm too pig-headed to give it up now, lol. Actually, Q might prove tricky too....

so anyway, N is for New Yorker of course. The big Chrysler was hard as heel to get a photo of partially because it was parked right next to where the band were playing and there was a massive crowd in the way and partly because the owners were the type who "show" their car by parking it, getting their folding chairs out and then sitting in them ALL DAY about two inches from the car, making it rather hard to photograph. Needless to say these are the sort of people who glare at you if you go within five feet of it, let alone actually want to talk about/photgraph it. This is the best I could do, sadly;


I took loads of detail pics of it but getting the entire car into a pic proved sadly impossible


The interior was a bit bonkers, not just the orginal Chrysler fittings and mad domed clockset, but the odd choice of ghetto pimp stylee wheel and stuff.


Those wheels probably require a closer look, too


N is also for just "New" on it's own. As in the new Camaro, looking pretty mean even when it isn't a Transformer


and the new Charger


which looks pretty mean even when it isn't dragging a giant safe around and through buildings in the preposterous climax to a Fast and Furious film lol


The driver was a bit of a hoodlum too, good lad


O is for Oldsmobile


Sadly, no 442, possibly my fave muscle car as I've bored you about before, but this murderdeathkill style Cutlass is a good substitute


Sadly, owner is another from the "it's my car and I ain't moving" type. I mean, knitting!? For God's bleeding sake!


O is kinda for Orange as well, which is the outstanding feature of this Ford based hotrod


It doesn't look too bright under the trees there, but when it was parked in the sun it was almost impossible to photograph without blinding the poor camera. The orange was so fierce and bright in the sun, mazing colour. I'd love to know what it actually was. You can see what I mean in this pic of the trick digital dash, to get the paint quiet enough to not overexpose horrifically everything else had to be nearly black. Probably a better cameraman would know how to do it, but your humble reporter is as clueless as usual


So I'll stick to the ones from under the trees lol


P is for Park Lane, another humongous Mercury. Humongous!? It took a hour to walk round it, buzzards were starting to circle by the time I'd finished in the hope I'd get too faint and dehydrated to complete the circuit and then they could pounce and feast on my eyeballs. Or something

[Lucky]

and since they didn't appear under M like you were expecting, P must be for Pony Car


Needless to say, there were a few about, but who doesn't love a nice Mustang?


I have a special amount of love for this fastback, probably my favourite of the bodystyles. I'm not convinced it's really a proper Cobrajet, I suspect the dress-up kit rather than full monty engine, but it does look fine


Beautiful colour


That "is it or isn't it?" badging hahaha


Right colour, Highland Green. Wrong bodyshell. Guess it's not Steve's then


As well as the ancient ones there were intermediate...


...and modern. Love this black GT 'vert


Q is for the queue. Not only cos it's a lovely word and I like the rhythm of it (rather like "rhythm", it's fun to spell) but also because it is the British National Sport after all.


Cop-out? Gimme a break lol. OK, Q is also for the quality tunes the band were knocking out. They were a queer lot in the old-fashioned sense of the word, fiddle and guitar are quite traditional, I guess, but this slightly odd bird...


...playing her midriff with a weird washboard doobrie was a bit unusual. The singer was good, too, half of what he sung was French and he played...


...one of the strangest instruments I've seen, sorta like a squeeze box made by a conglomerate of Heath Robinson, Ikea and Brasso. Needless to say their music was genre-defying lol, a sorta mix of cajun jigs and folk and blues and god knows what. Good though. Wish I could remember their name. Strange Chowder or something....


Hmmm, think I got away with that one. Moving swiftly on before anyone notices how contrived that was, R is for Rod


This is a red one, just to double up and make amends for the slightly contrived Q bit




Plenty of hot rods (well, the clue is in the name of the show, I suppose if anyone can remember that far back to the start of this thread). The paint on this Ford Pop arrested my attention and I got stuck for ages titting about trying to get the reflection right. Don't think I quite got there even so, this isn't how it looked in my head


Oddly, R is also for Routemaster, just one of the old buses doing tours around the town andfair for the day


S is for skull. It just is, OK. Got a problem with that?


It's also for "scraping" which this cleaned pickup was doing all over the place lol


and 'scort. Nice to see people modding different stuff like vans and that, I always like to see a break from more "normal" cars. I like the the wide-eyed kids peering in as well, next generation petrolheads?


Perhaps more sensibly, its also for Speedster. No idea if this is a genuine one, they all seem to be replicas nowadays


If it is, it seems at least to be of German origin though


Another rather rare thing now


Any idea? This might give it away


Yep, well done. A Pontiac Star Chief, no less. Another really beautiful blue out in the sunlight as well as being an awesome car


Somehow, despite being just as enormous and ostentatious as the rest it just seems more... I dunno, classy? Refined? Answers on a postcard. Or is it just me?




There must be as many different expressions of the humble Stepside around as there are bicycles in Beijing (and that's quite a lot, apparently. It's a fact. It's a thing we can't deny). This is one of my faves (Stepside, not the song)


just cos I'm a sucker for the rat-look and I love the easy charm of this. No silly chains and stickers, no roofrack filled with deliberately outre articles, just good old-fashioned neglect lol


got presence


Plenty of shinier ones there. The old boy who owned this flamed one was gutted though, the one night he leaves it out of his garage (night before the show, he'd been cleaning it on the drive apparently) and it absolutley p***ed down with that rain that's like a storm picked up half the Sahara and then dumped it right on top of your car. It looked like it had been driven through a Sergio Leone movie


Red ones are more shiny (as well as faster)


This was funny, I only noticed the lady wife of the driver was sitting in there for some peace and quiet once I'd stuck my lens in and done my bit. As it were. She was very nice though, and quite understanding about it.


This looks like an old one to me, but maybe it's the army green. TBH, I've no idea about Stepside vintages. They seem to have been made from like 1842 to 1980 without any major change


although this one has a big shiny grille that looks like the evil robot from the Black Hole. Or a suit of Japanese armour. Or tagiatele


Never miss a chance to do reflecty shiny Moon-Eyes hubcap shots, that's my motto


W is for Wings




..and Wheels (which is also the next show I went to after this, as it happens. Damn, I'm too good at this). Here are a few of my fave funky styles (that I haven't already posted). TransAm Chicken wheel


Corvette with knock-offs and Chevy logo


errrrr, another 'vette, I think. The dude must spend his life's work trying to keep these clean


X is for (almost) X-rated (ooooh, referee, foul!). No, honestly, last time I tried to post one of these things Photobucket deleted the pic for me cos it contravened their policy on indecency. No kidding. Like, man up guys


Y is for all kinds of thing like "YIKES!" and "YECCCCH". This sort of thing really, really.... REALLY ought not to be allowed. A bit of pinstriping, OK. Airbrushing.. not so much. Full-on bonnet muriel with dragons and mystic Injuns and fairy princesses and warriors with shiny swords and all that stuff... STOP IT! IT'S WRONG!


and Z is easy


and


Boom!


Thud!


and on the "is-it-a-Cortina-driving-backwards" funky pie plate headlight of an innocuous Zodiac, we have arrived



Blimey. can't believe I bluffed that one out to the end, what the absolute hell possessed me to start an alphabet-based bloody show report? Must need my head read lol. Anyhoo, made it....as always, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the pics even if not the words hahaha. I'm spent, now go away

[codge]

Zephyr's beautiful, Zodiak's a mess to my eyes. Would have been great left alone.

They both looked similar originally. Both were Ford 206E models, mostly originating in Dagenham. The Zephyr was a bit more upmarket than the 204E Consul, the Zodiak was a luxobarge variant of the 206E for the well heeled. Had a gold grille I think not chrome.

Both your pics look like late 1950's/1960 Mark 2 models. There was a low-line model introduced in 1961 with a slightly lower roof line (my Consul was one of these), then the 375 variant came along in 1962 mit der diskenstoppers nicht der drummenbraken.

Of all the cars I should have put into long term store.......My lovely Consul 3374 WY