(Words and Photos by Charles Wickam) For those of you that know me, you’re accustomed to me covering all kinds of events throughout the great state of Texas. With a recent move to Colorado I begin new ventures exploring what Colorado has to offer in automotive events, and this weekend being the first event I would attend, The 43rd annual Tri-State Auto Exhibition. The first show took place in 1958 when members of the Sabres car club wanted to put on an event and in that first year there were 70 cars and around 8,000 people who attended and each year the event grew by leaps and bounds. But in the late 90s, there were a few other indoor car shows in the Denver area as well and it came to where people just stopped going to all of them and they became no more. Fast Forward to the present day, and with the Sabre car club still alive and active, they wanted to bring back the event to fill the void because there just isn’t an event during the winter months to hold a person over til the outdoor show season kicks off. Now I’ve been to ALOT of shows around the country and for an event coming off a 20+ year hiatus I was surprised by the quality of vehicles that came out to support the event, from cruisers to pro street, muscle cars, slammed C10s to nostalgic drag and circle track cars it had a little bit of everything for everybody.
Thanks for the killer pics! You got my bare-metal, C10, 1959 Brookwood wagon and DeLorean! I appreciate it!!
Great coverage and pics of the event! I would like to note that there was a nationally recognized indoor car show every Thanksgiving weekend in Denver that my family and I produced for nearly 20 years from 1997-2015. We are extremely happy that the Sabres are able to bring automotive culture back to the general public in a great market such as Denver, but it is slightly misleading to imply nobody attended indoor car shows from the late 90’s on. There has always been some confusion surrounding indoor car shows in the Denver metro area in the late 90’s, which is easy to understand at a time when World of Wheels, Tri-State and The Rocky Mountain Rod & Custom all produced events within a year of each other. Regardless, we are all hoping next years event is even bigger and better and that the Sabres continue old traditions with great success.