45 classic cars assembled at the Holiday Inn on Saturday, February 27, to make it the first event of this style in Pattaya. This event was organized by the Rotary Club of Phoenix-Pattaya and concluded with a parade down Beach Road, and then return on Second Road, ferrying young children for the ride of their lives.
The Rotary Phoenix organizers want to see this grow, and be something like the Goodwood Revival in the UK, but on a smaller scale. Since 1998, the Goodwood Revival attracts over 100,000 people for each of the three days, with many coming in period fashions.
Fiat 1100.
With 45 cars on display at the Holiday Inn it certainly stopped the traffic, with some of the cars on show having never been seen by many spectators.
Many years ago, Fiat sold well in Thailand, especially in the north. The 1100 was a 1949 model.
Model A Fords were the preferred transport of the infamous bank robber Clyde Barrow who wrote to Henry Ford:
Dear Sir:
“While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow”
Indeed a fine car, with one of them still running in Pattaya.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the popular motor cars had small four cylinder engines and the top seller was the Austin 7, which was also sold in Europe, re-badged as the BMW Dixi. Two bearing crankshafts with 747 cc’s volume. They made lots of them and this was a very honest example.
Model A Ford.
The Austin company can trace its roots to 1905 and was founded by (later Sir) Herbert Austin. The Austin 7 came out in 1922 and was revolutionary in its day.
A British anachronism is the Morgan company still producing handmade sports cars on a wooden frame, with sliding pillar front suspension which dates back to about 1919. If you want to buy a Morgan you are placed on the waiting list!
1930 Austin 7.
A 1939 MG TB was on display, this was the forerunner of the MG TC, the sports car which took America by storm. The TB and TC were almost the same, other than the TB had sliding trunnion rear springs and the 1946 TC had spring hangers.
The very British Morgan Plus 4.
By the 1950’s America wanted to be bigger and better than all other countries and the “Detroit chrome grin” got bigger and more ostentatious.
Not only did the grin get bigger, but the cars themselves became bloated and overweight. The Cadillac Fleetwood was a prime example of flashy OTT styling, complete with fins and “after-burners”. All this was to change when the first oil crisis hit America.
MG TB.
The Detroit chrome grin.
A Cadillac of excesses.
