Golling has always had our back and it flows both ways, but would hate to wreck one of the best swap meets of the summer (connected to a show) There are of course the stand alone BIG swap meet's every summer. Hard to find the time to attend when your really not looking for much anymore. Actually need to sell some of the overflow parts taking up garage space.

I am not excited by the new location either. Ray, at the Motor City chapter, asked me while we were at the Gilmore what I thought of the new location. I gave him the "eh - let's wait and see" answer. I agree with Justa on the fact there is a huge difference between the park and the dealership. However, Golling is our patron sponsor for our club, so I need to be thankful and support them.

Not real excited about moving from the park to the parking lot. (park was less than 3 mi from my house making it much easier to run home and get the other car to show them all together, with JustaG6's Torrent, thats 4 Pontiac's) Not alot of places for our traditional group photo's with Frosty N IndyJoe and of course the Notallthere's at Gollings. Hoping there is enough room for vendors in the swap meet. Many always set up indoors and items that would not do well to set up outside. Golling usually has the service center open doing oil changes ect. Unless you get there at 7am, it's hard to get a spot of grass to set up the tent. Have some new banners to show off!!!!! As do you Frosty. This will be my 31st Widetracker show, missing only 2 and the 1 year covid shut us down. Good times, great friends!!! JustaG6, Justa6, Justa66 the JUSTA tribe!

nice

Yup. I'm the club photographer for this event. Not sure if it will be the Roadmonster or Black Beauty at the show this year. I literally leave right after this car show for Hot Rod Power Tour.

Are you going frosty ?

The Michigan Widetracker's 34th Annual Spring Dust Off car show will be held June 10, 2023 at Golling Buick-GMC, 1491 Lapeer Road M-24, in Lake Orion, Michigan. Pre-registration is $15.00. Late registration is $20.00. This show is open Pontiacs, Oaklands, GMC trucks, Buick and Oldsmobile.

I did not go back. I was not feeling ambitious this weekend with it so damn cold and damp. I do have plans for Thursday though, when I go to the Gilmore Museum in Hickory Corners, MI with the POCI. I got a separate email from M1 themselves (and obviously not from Dan). Did you see it? If not, I'll forward it to you.

Great shots as always. Did you go back yesterday? Didn't see anything from Dan on the M1.

That’s amazing ❤️

Wow, what a car collection! Thanks for sharing Frosty.

More pictures from last week at Lingenfelter Performance. Interesting how Avanti's solution to the 5 mph bumper is..... GP 2+2 Great pair of Buick wagons. I wished they built the latter on. This is a Century wagon with a Regal front clip on it. This car is going up for sale at an upcoming auction. A Tojan - the most unique 3rd gen Trans Am you'll ever see.

Damn retirees.....they complain that they are busier now than when they were working.

Holland to check out the Tulip fest. Then a short roadtrip to the cabin and see if it survived the winter. Spend the night and maybe hop over to Traverse for the day N head home.

I just sent Ken a thank you note in LinkedIn. I forget I was in his connection group. Here is an article about some of the other Corvettes in his collection. https://www.slashgear.com/1239268/5-incredible-chevrolets-ken-lingenfelter-collection/

Are you celebrating all weekend Justa? Helluva party man!

Sorry next weekend will be celebrating our 45th anniversary. Even though you could probably get us in for free. 😎

I had tried to get both Justa and Indyman Joe to show up. Both of them were under the weather. So boys, do we want to try to go again next Saturday during the actual charity event?

Outstanding frosty !!!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍

Another stellar collection of pics and prose from Frosty. Good on you, mate.

Wow! What a good mix up to get some face time with Ken!

That was freakin awesome. I missed the chance to be there with Frosty after over doing it on the yardwork.

It's charity open house time again this year. Or so I thought. I went down to the Lingenfelter Collection yesterday. I noticed a lack of cars in and around the place. As I was turning around in the parking lot, an elderly man came out. I asked him if today was the charity open house. He said it's next week. Damn. However, he said I could come in and take a look around since there was already another car club here taking a tour. He said he'd meet me in the lobby. Oh okay. I parked the pickup. I walked into the lobby. The gentleman I met outside came walking in to meet me. He said, "Hi. I'm Ken. Ken Lingenfelter." I damn near peed myself! I thanked him for allowing me to come in and look around. I gave him $20 to give to the charity fund raiser next week. He said he'd make sure it would get into the right hands. Ken said I was free to look around. He told me that the sole purpose of the collection is to do fund raising. He said the collection hosted 60 events last year. Wow. I was there for just under an hour when the car club was wrapping up their visit. Ken told them the story of how he got into cars. He was a teenager in Dearborn MI in the early 60s when he saw his first aplit window Corvette. He fell in love with those cars. That got him into hot rodding while in high school. He thinks he's the only person to be arrested doing a burn out in front of the high school (at least in the 60s). This is the "Blue Angels" Corvette. This supercharged LS Corvette beat a Blue Angels jet in a quarter mile drag race! The Blue Angels are the US Navy's flight demonstration team. Every time the Blue Angels come to Michigan to do an airshow, the Lingenfelter team is their VIP at the airshow, and then Lingenfelter hosts a dinner for the entire team. Of course at the dinner, the Lingenfelter team shows the video of the Corvette winning..... The car club left after this story. I was on the far end of the collection and I saw Ken walking towards me. I asked him if they were locking up. They were. I said no problem and I thanked again him for letting me in. I asked him what was the story of the 442 Cutlass Vista Cruiser Wagon, probably one of my favorite cars in the collection. It is an Olds Vista Cruiser wagon, with 442 front sheet metal on it. They installed a supercharged LS and 5-speed manual transmission in it. Ken said the car was found in California. Totally rust free. He said he as "peculiar taste in cars" sometimes. He thought the car would look cooler with a 442 front end. I have to agree. Ken said this 1997 Hurst Special Trans Am was available from your local Pontiac dealer back in the day. It was made by Lingenfelter for Pontiac. As we walked toward the front, we walked through the Corvette Room. All sorts of Vettes are there. First one you notice is Corvette #24. This is one of the original 300 Corvettes hand built in Flint, MI in 1953. It was once owned by McCullogh Corp, it is one of only 2 such Vettes that are supercharged. I never seen a Blue Flame six supercharged before (or with 3 carbs). I asked Ken what was the story behind him getting the famous Zora Duntov test mule Corvette. He said his friend in Ohio owned it. His friend took to a Mecum auction. Mecum estimated to be worth $750k. Ken was sitting behind his friend at the auction. Sadly when it came up on the block, bidding stalled at $310k. The Mecum grinder (the person that tries to get you to lower or drop your reserve) was in his friend's face. HIs friend dropped the reserve. Ken decided to get the bidding going with a $320k bid. No one else bid, and it sold to Ken. Ken told his friend that the car is worth more than that and he wanted to make him whole. His friend said," since the car is going to you Ken, I know it will be well taken car of. We are good and I am happy it is going to you." Ken next pointed out the row of white 2023 Corvettes. These are all going to be converted in Cunningham Corvettes, about a total of 60. Lingenfelter does the actual conversions on them. I mentioned to Ken my love for C4 Corvettes because it was my dad who was responsible for the 84-89 dash. He pointed out two C4s in the collection. The first was a 40th anniversary edition. He said another friend of his was working with GM and Mercury Marine on a new engine program at the time. It was essentially a beefier, more powerful LT-5 engine. I think the LT-5 is the prettiest engine ever put in a Corvette. Well GM cancelled this engine program just before start of production. So no tweaked LT-5s were ever produced in production. However, Ken's friend knew where some of the pre-production blocks and heads were. They got a set and built the LT-5 that never was. It now sits in this 40th anniversary C4. The second C4 was this white example. A past customer had Lingenfelter build the engine in this C4. He loved it very much and drove it a lot. He was getting up in age and had to stop driving it. He wanted to donate it to the collection. Ken said once they got the car, he was not sure what all they would have to do to it. Surprisingly the car was immaculate. No road rash, The original owner had taken really good care of it, no dents or paint chips. Then they learned the car had 400,000 miles on it! Wow! Ken was stunned and it was a small testimony to his engineers' work to have a car go 400k miles without being touched or repaired. Finally we talked about the red and green Corvette Corvair's. These are authentic re-creations of the missing '55 Motorama car. GM debuted 3 Corvette Motorama cars in 1955. There was the coupe, the Nomad, and the Corvair fastback. Ken said GM came up with the Corvair name by combining Corvette with Bel Air. Ken said he owns the green Corvair while another friend owns the red one. The red one is for sale. It is going to be sold later this month in an auction in Auburn Indiana. Ken's friend wants to see $250k for it, but Ken doubts he will get it. Still the attention to deal is remarkable. Ken pointed out the bowtie emblems imbedded with the rear decklid as just one example. In the end, I had another 30 minutes of Ken's undivided time, telling me these stories before I ended up walking out the door. It's an experience I won't soon forget. I have pictures of other cars that I will post shortly but these are the cars with the stories from my new best friend, Ken Lingenfelter.

If you take the tail of the dragon Frosty, you'll need to get a pic of the "tree of shame" for our overseas friends. Thats a pretty famous road for motorcycles.