The 2006 Orphan Car Show

ORPHANS IN YPSILANTI
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel
Detroit Bureau

My summer is officially in full swing

I spent a warm sunny day at a collector car show with two cameras around my neck, shooting the unusual cars and their details while chatting with all the old guys. Jack Miller, head honcho of The Orphan Car Show tells me this one has been going on now for 10 years. It’s one I’ve always meant to attend, and this is my first visit.

Hosted by the only Hudson dealership in the US, located in Ypsilanti, MI and sponsored by the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, the Orphan Show attracts well over 300 cars to a neglected but lovely park along the banks of the Huron River, just east of Ann Arbor. On the bluff overlooking the field is a line of Victorian houses in various states of repair. The river was high and the current fast. I don’t think the Amphicars would dare challenge that high water. The entry criteria is that the car or truck must be an orphan, that is, a make no longer produced. I was surprised there were no Oldsmobiles but many other notable makes were represented.

My favorite class was the Studebaker cars and trucks. Having driven a

’53 Champion sedan through college I’m particularly fond of South Bend’s remarkable cars, most of which were ahead of their time in terms of overall design. My ’53 was a centennial car. In case you weren’t aware. The Studebaker brothers went into business in 1853 building buckboards and wagons.

As I arrived at the show Jeff Gotchaulk, auto designer and collector car aficionado, and his crew were announcing the Studebaker class and reviewing them as they passed before the stand. The judges, lead by Jeff Leestma,

president of the Automotive Hall of Fame, a proud Hudson owner himself, determined that the best Studebaker was the pretty pale yellow ’48 convertible owned by Bob Chambers of Grand Blanc, Michigan. Next before the reviewing stand were the ’53s and ‘54s. Then one that struck my fancy called the ’57 Studebaker Scottsman. The only chrome on the whole car was the grille. The rest of the trim was painted, not chromed. Scottsmen are known for frugality and this car was totally stripped of anything not necessary. It still had a great deal of style.

Across from the Studes was a long line of Hudsons, from the 20s Terraplaines to the Hornets and Wasps of the 50s. Some of those Hudsons had an amazing amount of flash and pizzazz. Hudson pioneered the “step-down” design in the late 40s that defined cars thereafter. There must have been three dozen of them.

Albert Ives of Windser, Ontario brought his big, bulbous Nash Statesman with 99,000 miles and original paint. A good example of how every car has a story – and so does every owner. Both owner and car were interesting characters.

I was surprised at the Edsels. Plenty of ‘59s showed up, but only one “60 and no ‘58s. To me, the ’58 was, by far, the most stylish with a great deal of unique character. The ’59 took that character and began to homogenize it, and the ’60 was a barely disguised Ford with little distinction at all. But, speaking of Fords, right next to the Edsels was an interesting car I barely recognized. It was a ’60 Monarch Lucerne – really, a Canadian Mercury.

Many Packards lined up on the west side of the meadow. Some of the rare, custom-bodied ‘30s cars shared the field with the garish, bubbles of the early 50s. The one I liked was a big mid-30s sedan in its original rusty patina. Hot rodders are familiar with the term “Rat Rod” for rusty old rods with their own unique charm. Well, we’ll call these “Rat Classics” perhaps. A Pierce Arrow in the same condition paraded around the field.

What else did we see at the Orphan Show? Well, there was a Crosley

convertible, some Willis Knights, Checkers, a Whippet, lots of Ramblers, a Delorean, AMXs, lots of Corvairs (built there in Yspilanti), and even an East European Trabant, an exotic Citroen SM and a 2CV, a Matra rally racer, some neat little Fiats, a DeTomaso Pantera, and a rare Facel-Vega, a Singer (unrelated to the sewing machine), Triumphs, MGs and one big classic Deusenberg. We could go on and on.

Perhaps the rarest car on the field was . . . get this . . . a ’90 Yugo Cabrio. Not only was the Yugo such a dismally built car that there must be nearly none left, the Cabrio is even more rare, having been imported for less than a year.

If you love the really unusual cars, like I do, put the Orphan Car Show on your calendar for next year – usually early June,