(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – Each Somernites weekend spotlights a certain model, type, or make of vehicle. For the last event of 2014 it was the ’55 – ’57 Chevy and we were blessed with a large assortment of the genre. These cars can be built in so many different styles and virtually all of them ‘work’. The event had examples of the gasser-look, Jr. stockers, full-resto, resto-mod, custom, street machine, Pro-street and survivor. Some full-on drag cars made wonderful noise and I got to show my son the difference between a wagon and a Nomad….several times. There were a few black&white ’56 models that were really striking in their overall appearance much like a black widow ’57, but a tad bit more classy. A Yellow ’57 appears to have been a hotrod for a very long time with ancient decals and weathering that doesn’t look faux.
Normally a show that has a heavy concentration of Tri-5s will have one year represented more than the others, but I didn’t see that here. I also didn’t see more hardtops verses post cars or any one particular build style over-shadow other tastes. I’d find it easy to choose ten or twenty or even thirty to take home with me (of course, only if I could afford it). If I could only have one it’d be this copper-colored ’57 done up as a Jr Stocker and looked like it rolled right out of the ‘60s. Enjoy.
It was a fantastic week end in Somerset for the tri five gathering. The grey primer 55 chevy with the grey torq thrust wheels is my car ( 2nd picture top row, first tri five pictured ). I drove it up from near Chattanooga, Tn. Had a blast all week end.
Troy