Every Labor Day Weekend, the Spindles Car Club puts on a big car show at the Marshfield Fair Grounds in Marshfield, MA. The club, which is based out of Weymouth, MA, is one of the largest clubs in the state, and has been running this show for the past 36 years. I’ve been attending this show since I was a kid, and every year it gets bigger and more diverse. This year, I brought my camera along and snapped some pics of some of the BangShiftiest stuff there. Check it out!
You want different? Well, how about a BMW 2002 gasser? I cruise by the owner’s house all the time. I know he lives there because he parks the thing on his front lawn for passers by to admire! I mean, wouldn’t you?
The blown small block Chevy in this 2002 must be a handful in such a light car. It must be a hoot to drive!
This shoebox Nova was super clean and had a perfect 80’s Pro Street vibe going for it with those side stripes.
Speaking of Novas… I’m not sure if this is a real Yenko car, but the big and littles stance is doing it for me. I’ve seen this one pounding around the streets south of Boston, MA, and it sounds killer.
This early 2nd Gen Firebird looked like it could turn the Earth under it’s massive rear meats.
While there are always trucks at this show, this year’s event seemed to have more trucks than ever before. And that’s definitely not a bad thing! The two classic Macks here: a dump bed and a wrecker, were pristine. Lohnes would have had to scrape his jaw off the pavement!
We’re suckers for muscle trucks here, and this late 70’s Dodge was no exception. It was a little rough around the edges, but mostly original, save for the wheel and tire package and a smattering of speed parts. Love it!
From the “what is that thing doing in the states?” column comes this awesome Holden Ute/Pontiac GTO. It was left hand drive with a GTO front end and trim, so I’m not sure if they imported a Ute and swapped things over, or cut up a US market GTO and added the Ute bed. It was getting lots of attention, and was nicely executed.
I saw this old Corvair out of the corner of my eye, and when I approached to check it out, I found a V8 in the trunk!
Here’s a nice example of a “Day Two” car. This massive 1963 Galaxie was wearing classic Cragar S/S wheels and sported a clean 390 under the hood. I wanted to cruise the wheels off this thing!
The 80’s kid in me got all excited when I saw this one. A 1983 Z28, in metallic brown with a brown interior, a manual transmission, and no T-tops, with only 9,000 miles on it for sale! This car looked like it was only a couple years old. The “Best Offer” tag on the hood means the seller was looking for mondo bucks, but man, it was a looker.
The 1983 cars were arguably the coolest pre-TPI 3rd Gen Camaros. That year was the debut of the 5-speed manual transmission, and the hoods were made of a light composite material when you optioned the LG4 or L69 305. CrossFire Injection was also available through ’84, but since this car had a stick, either a L69 or a LG4 carbed 305 was lurking under these fake ducts. These are nice cars to mildly modify.
The brown-out continued inside the car as well. Three pedals, five speeds, and full instrumentation was as good as it got in 1983. The interior on this car was absolutely perfect! It was so painfully original that it would be almost too nice to mess with.
Speaking of brown things, this chocolate-flavored E-Body ‘Cuda was very nice. Like the Galaxie posted above (and many other cars there), it was sporting some Cragar S/S wheels, a popular “Day Two” mod.
CRAGAR S/S ALL THE THINGS!!! This 1969 GTO sported beautiful paint, and everyone’s favorite aftermarket wheel.
Everyone loves wagons, right? Here’s a nice example of a muscle wagon in the form of a 1969 Buick Special. This one did not have the Vista Roof in the back, but that’s ok, because it oozed cool and sported a 455. This one hit me right in the feels. I could have purchased a very similar 1968 Skylark wagon for about $800 back in high school in the late 90’s, but I passed on it because it was green. Stupid!
The mid-70’s Camaros usually have a bad reputation. For 1975 and 1976, Chevy dropped the Z28 package, and performance minded enthusiasts shunned the more pedestrian models. But hey, they are still great looking cars when you modify them! This example was from those “dark times”, and it looked absolutely killer.
Max Wedge Mopar anyone? This 1965 Coronet was unbelievably clean. It almost looked too nice to drive!
While it’s no Sonoramic Commando, the 426 Max Wedge’s giant cross ram intake is still beautiful. Again, you could eat off any surface of this car! So impeccably clean!
Back in the halcyon days of muscle, engines had cool names. And no one named their engines better than the Mopar guys. Super Commando, Fire Dome, and this Ramcharger 426 were among the list of names they called their high performance mills. The Mopar guys are still doing this, with it’s latest example being the Hellcat. More manufacturers need to bring this back, and plaster their internal nicknames, like Ford’s Coyote V8, all over the engine bay!
Speaking of sweet Mopar engine names, here’s a Super Red Ram V8 sitting in a 1957 Dodge. There were actually two different Super Red Ram V8’s: a Hemispherical head version and a Polyspherical head version. This one is the Poly, which is easily distinguishable from the Hemi because it doesn’t have the spark plug boots in the center of the valve covers.
In the past 5-6 years, one can argue that no classic car has gained more popularity than the late 70’s Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. As an owner of a 1979 myself, I remember going to this very show and not seeing one of these cars for years. This year, there were nearly 10 of them at the show, including this beautiful 1976 50th Anniversary Special Edition Trans Am. These were built to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Pontiac division, and were modeled after a 1974 Trans Am concept car that wore a similar paint scheme to the popular black and gold John Player Special F1 cars. The concept car was popular enough to warrant Pontiac to offer a similar package for the 50th Anniversary. A certain movie that came out a year later featured a refreshed 1977 model wearing the black and gold trim, and the rest is history.
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Studebakers are really cool cars! Here’s a customized example of what I believe is a 1956 Hawk. I’m not sure if it’s a Golden Hawk, Sky Hawk, or a plain Hawk, but it was very nicely sorted. The wheels were interesting and probably would not look good on anything else, but they worked here. I always felt that the 50’s Studes with this laid-back styling were ahead of their time. One of the prettiest cars at the show for sure!
Oooh, an AMC Spirit GT! This one was as good as it gets: turbine wheels with fat white letter tires, a nice hue of Malaise Era burnt orangy brownness, and a manual transmission-backed honest-to-goodness AMC 360 V8.
Tucked away in the corner of the fairgrounds was a row of street rods, roadsters, and T-buckets. This one looked like a killer driver with it’s modern rubber and wheels.
This traditional rod looked like the kind of thing your grandfather built in the 50’s. Subtle and clean!
Out of all the street rods there, I gravitated toward this one for its simple lines, clean silver paint, and great stance. Sometimes, less is more. I’d drive this thing to the other end of the country and back!
What year is it? This Ford looked like it could have shared a video shoot with ZZ Top back in the mid-80’s! And I say that with all the love in my heart.
Let’s play “What Kind of Corvette Kit Is It?” starring this mid-year Corvette convertible! Seriously, I have no clue what kit this is, but I didn’t hate it. The slotted wheels and the side pipes looked cool, and judging by the then-chic rectangular headlamps in the grille, I’m guessing this was done in the mid 1970’s. It had sort of an IMSA look to it with the giant wheel flares, and that never goes out of style.
This traditional roadster looked great with it’s old-school paint job and period mods.
One thing I noticed this year was the lack of “Rat Rods”. There were only a handful of these in attendance, and some even transcended genres, like this heavily patina’ed 50’s Ford pickup. This one was slammed, chopped, and sweet. Are Rat Rods on the way out? All signs are pointing to yes.
Stuck in the “Rat Rod” row was this early 70’s Lincoln. To me, this thing screamed Max Max more than anything, thanks to the giant blower sticking out of the acres-long hood. When the world ends, you’ll probably see this beast roaming the streets!
As sure as the sun sets, Buick Grand Nationals will always be badass. I still get tingly feelings every time I see one.
There are less and less 1983-88 Monte Carlo SS’s on the road these days, but there were plenty of them at the show. Put it this way: Nutting would have left quite the trail of drool next to an entire row of these! This particular one was going for the NASCAR vibe with the stock car wheels, extended front spoiler, and side exit exhaust. And are those Trans Am fender vents I see?
Supercharged Monte SS… Whoa. Ultra clean install to boot. There is so much room under the hoods of these cars for boosting activities!
Monte SS guys will tell you that this is a rare one. What we have here is a white with gold stripes SS with a tan interior. Not many of these were optioned this way.
My takeaways from the show:
-Contrary to what many reports as of late have to say: car culture is NOT shrinking, at least around here it isn’t! This show gets bigger every year, and the attendance this year was historic.
-I’m not sure what the next big thing is, but I noticed a few trends. First, the cars of the late 70’s and 80’s are finally getting their due. There were lots of 70’s and 80’s Camaros, Firebirds, G-Bodies, and even late 70’s Mopars in the mix, and crowd reaction was strongly positive. Rat rods are trending downward, and while there were a few import/tuner cars, the numbers were lower than in the past (they are probably going to Stance and manufacturer specific shows these days).
-Trucks! There were a lot more trucks in attendance this year, and a marked upswing in attendance for 1990’s Chevy/GMC GMT400 trucks and 1992-96 Fords, especially the 1st generation Lightning. These are going to blow up soon.
-Older builds are “retro” now and cool again. Street rods and Pro Street stuff that people built in the 80’s and 90’s are back in style, and people were eating them up.
So now, I’ll turn it over to you readers. Out of the cars posted, what’s your favorite? Were you there at the show? Let us know what you think in the comments section!
I was there briefly – my friend had the 2002 Chrysler 300M on air.
I was supposed to bring my 69 Satellite wagon, but the fan clutch went in the driveway that morning.
One thing is for sure, it was a beautiful day.