The last weekend in February is traditionally the date for the Big 3
swap at
San Diego's Jack Murphy (Qualcom) stadium. This years affair was the biggest
ever, and all swap spaces were sold by Friday afternoon. I like this swap
above all others because it is heavy on stuff for old cars. Most of the other
swaps, Pomona, Long Beach, etc., are heavy on hypo stuff with little to offer
the restorer.
Since I am now the owner of an AD truck, I kept my eye peeled this year
for
old Chevy bits, and brother, they weren't hard to spot! I worked the meet this
year and only got out for a short time, perhaps seeing only 1/3 of the meet,
but I saw babbit motors with old 4 speeds, sheet metal (hood $45, RF fender
$35), Saginaw 4 speeds ($250-$400), torque tube rear ends, and trim parts
everywhere.
At least two vendors put in an appearance, one from East L.A. that I
have
forgotten the name of and "Grumpy's" out of AZ. I bought some stuff off of
Grumpy (who doesn't seem terribly grumpy) and was able to cancel one of the
interminable back orders at Golden State. The Lit vendors were out in force,
but I didn't find the Motors Truck manual covering my years ('51 - '59). I did
score some '39 Cadillac color chips so that I know what color the olecaddie
left the factory in.
As a casual observation of some of the other vendors vehicles, the AD
trucks
WAY outnumbered the TF trucks, maybe by 10 to 1! The AD trucks and panels were
mostly working, hauling stuff to be sold, and a fair number were obviously
rolling projects. A fair few looked as if they were just driven off the show
room floor, what a treat! The TFs that I can recall were all rodded and
looking very clean. No rolling projects here! I can see no obvious reason why
the TFs were all so clean, as they are sure pretty enough to be worthy of
restoring, and the TFs should be able to haul a load with the best of the ADs.
Perhaps it is something about the sheet metal shapes that is just more
inspiring to the artistic streak inherent in the customizer types.
Paul O'Neil,
1951 Chevrolet 3600 Pickup Project, See it at:
The Poor Man's Advanced Design Tech Tips Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~conntest47/
Fullerton, California USA
Hudson29@aol.com
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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