by Keith Gramlich
The new Preller/Padavan meet was way more than I ever expected! Many thanks to Paul Parnes, Tom Vitalle, Genie Feminella, and Walter Wiegand, we had a tremendous turnout of cars and a wonderful venue! Thanks also to Harry Verity and Sebastian D’Agostino for their help in parking the vehicles so we could all enjoy them in a very orderly fashion! We had a great selection of vendors, good food and good times. I was so happy to see the Rickenbaugh boys out, not only with the REO Speedwagon News Truck, but also with Ray’s Hudson sedan, which is a registered AACA HPOF (Historical Preservation of Original Features) designation. This is a very important designation that AACA has come up with in order to try to preserve as many of the original unrestored and unmolested vehicles as possible. I hadn’t seen that sedan except for archive photos, and it is magnificent. The range of vehicles was enormous, including a Lincoln Continental Town car from the late 1970’s, both restored and unrestored Chevy Pick-up trucks from the early 1960’s, Model A’s, Moose’s Chevy Truck, and the list goes on.
It was a tremendous effort to move this meet from the Queens County Farm Museum, where it was for almost 40 years, but I think the move was highly successful and we moved into our new home very well!