By Henri Kroeze
Photos by Mario van Ginneken and Henri Kroeze
The
alarm was set for 7.00 am. That was awfully early for an ordinary Sunday morning, but this
day was special. Maureen and I were going to attend a large USA-only car meeting, the
first non-Corvette club meeting we would visit. Maureen was already in tip-top shape,
after I spent the whole day Saturday cleaning, waxing & detailing her. Oh yes, Maureen
is our '79 red metallic Corvette with Doeskin interior. Mario van Ginneken and I had
agreed to meet at 8:45 at a local motel to drive up together to the meeting point to join
a real caravan that would drive up to the show. I removed the T-tops from Maureen and
jumped in. She fired up immediately. Yeah, what do you expect from an engine that's brand
new...
Mario
arrived with Sheila (his yellow '86 coupe) and we took off to the 'official' meeting
point, a gas station, a 20 minute drive away. There were already several other Heartbeat
club members waiting with their Vettes.
Soon after other people joined us, and since the show we would attend was open for all USA-built iron, other brands & types rolled in as well. Besides the Vettes, about 10 of them, were Camaro's, Dodge Chargers, Pontiac Firebirds & Trans Ams & euhh.... a Mustang. When the last car arrived, a red '56 Corvette, the oldest car from the Heartbeat Corvette Club and one of my favourite Vettes, we took off with about 20 cars. The drive took a little more than an hour, and at 10:15 we arrived in Arnhem, Papendal. The show was held in Holland's largest sports center, which is situated in a very nice park, unbelievably large with woods, grass fields, etc.--a perfect place for a large meeting.
During
the drive we sure did turn some heads. I was kept busy with a gray Opel Kadett who was in
the middle of our caravan. I tried to get rid of him several times, so he decided to drive
behind me. Afterwards I heard he was also part of our group heading to the show...
Our group was among the first 100 cars that arrived, so we had a nice spot to park the Vettes. After some coffee we walked back to our Vettes and since we were parked close to the field entrance we could watch the incoming cars. That was mighty impressive!!
Most
of them were Vettes, Camaro's and Trans Ams/Firebirds. But we also saw Cadillacs (an
extremely nice pink '59), the Fury from the movie 'Christine', some El Camino's and Ford
Ranchero's, classic Chevy's like some '57's, Studebakers, old Ford & Chevy pickups, an
extremely nicely restored Chevy Panel van, 'modern' vans, Chevy Blazers & pickups,
high wheeled Jeeps, Ford Boss's, two real Shelby Mustangs, a race Corvette, a Viper, the
'General Lee' from the Dukes of Hazard (this time it was green with a white roof), etc,
etc. There were oo many to mention. The total of the cars that attended the show was more
than 1.000 vehicles.
The state of the vehicles ranged from 'no interior, just a worn out seat (one), a dashboard & a steering wheel and a flip nose with an unbelievable dirty engine' to NCRS winners & other 'better than new', all original state.
Customs
& hot rods were also present, among them were a '30 (?) Ford hot rod, a custom Chevy
Chevelle (dark purple with white interior, chrome everything under the hood, nice, very
thin sidepipes and a bunch of trophies), a low rider named 'Low Commotion' with mega bass
& 'working' suspension, and other cars with wild custom paint jobs, wide tires and
lots of chrome.
Also on display were two very trick Corvettes, both being C4's, both red. One had a 454 engine (who needs TPI???) and the other was a Lingenfelter.
All possible colors could be seen there. It was nice to see the orange with white stripes Camaro, the white with blue striped Ford Mustangs, bright red Viper, pink Caddy, *yellow* Corvette (a '80, who won the second place for best Corvette of show), nice cream/beige all original Camaro, yellow Ford Boss, blue Ford Mach I, II and III.
I was amazed by what I saw. Unbelievable there are that many cars like this in Holland! And most of them in good to perfect shape! If you like American Muscle, you would have loved this show!
It was very funny to see these cars parked across each other, we had to park our cars the way we entered the field. That did certainly add to the fun! Now you were talking to other than Corvette owners as well.
One of the nice things about this show was that nobody had to pay an entrance fee (not the cars who entered, nor the visitors nor the vendors) I can imagine that, if this show is organized next year, we will have to pay for attendance, but it will be worth it.
Foreign visitors came mostly from Germany & Belgium. How about some English visitors next year? Or American???
One of the vendors offered prizes for the best cars of the show. Since the show was co-hosted by three Dutch US-car clubs (One Corvette club, a Mustang club and a Corvette-Camaro-Firebird club) and these clubs provided the judges, only the Vettes, Camaro's, Firebirds/Trans Ams and Mustangs were judged. (They plan to judge more cars next year, if they can involve other car clubs as well into the organization of the event.) Each brand/type was divided in two categories, one pre '73 and one post '73. In each category there was a first, second and third prize to be won.
You could earn points for your paint job (including rubbers, emblems, chrome, etc), wheels/tires, interior and engine. Since I left the hood of Maureen closed I scored a perfect 0 points on the last category.
There were two '63 Split Windows and they won the first & second place in the pre-'73 Corvette class. One of them is an NCRS restored black with red interior, the other is a red with black interior and this Vette has been in Holland since '64! It was sold new here.
In the post '73 class one of my friends won the second place with his *yellow* (where-are-my-sunglasses) '80 coupe with black/yellow interior. All the interior parts are shaped according the original molds, but they're colored a very tasteful black/yellow. Under the hood everything is chrome. He won his eleventh thropy. His car was also shown on the national TV that evening during the news program that covered the show. Maureen was parked just *two* Vettes away...
The
weather was *hot* & *very humid*. To be honest it was too hot for this day. I can't
remember drinking that much Coke in one day. It was like walking around in a sauna. After
4:00 pm, when the winners were announced, most cars left immediately due to the heat. Our
group of 20 cars was reduced to five Corvettes as we took off. I again drove topless (boy
I love that design!!) until about half a mile before I got home.
When approaching the village where I live I saw this *huge* thunderstorm above our village. I stopped immediately to put the tops back on. It was seconds after I put the tops on that I ended up in this thunderstorm. The streets were covered with 2 - 3 inch of water. Everything was soaking wet. But, see it on the bright side, all the dust that settled on Maureen during the meeting was washed away in just seconds! It is certainly not my favourite way to wash my Vette, but hey, it worked! This is how most of the more beautiful days in Holland end, with rain. Not long, just a little shower of 15 - 30 minutes, enough to cool the weather down.
All
in all it has been a perfect day, and I surely hope the organizers will do it all over
again in '98!
I (or should I say, we) had a great time!
Editor's Note: Mario's yellow 86 coupe can be seen behind the fellow on the left side of the photo.
Copyright 1996 Barbara Spear
