SAAC 32, The National Convention





The 2007 national convention was held in Salt Lake City, Utah. I thought you might want to see some of what goes on at a major event.

First, let me say, you need to attend a national event. Even if you don't attend all three days, you need to go. I met several people that I chatted with through email and had a great time.


Utah is a beautiful place. Here are few pictures I took sight seeing. I went to see the Great Salt Lake. I was surprised to learn there was little recreation in the lake. The picture shows Antelope Island, one of many in the lake. It is the home of over 500 buffalo.


The Kennecott Copper mine is one of the largest in the world. On the right side of the top picture are seven dump trucks. Each of the tires on the massive trucks are 12 feet tall. The tires sell for $25,000 each and there are six tires on each truck.



I also took a drive into the mountains. The back road to Park City (2002 Winter Olympic site) can be a little exciting at times. There are no guard rails and drop offs of over 80 feet are common. The temperatures were in the high 80's. That was considerably cooler than the 105 degree track. The Hummer is a rental :-)



Tim's Acapulco Blue, GT500 was the show stopper. The car won the Gold Award, one of SAAC's highest honors. Even more remarkable, Tim brought the beauty all the way from Rhode Island for the event.



Here is a nearly perfect GT500 engine bay. Tim's car was judged 97% correct by the judges.



This close-up shows the pcv system. You can see the blue pipe actually has a different shape than the GT500KR version. You can also see the intake is correctly painted blue.



One of the highlights was the the Shelby Museum display. They are located in Boulder, Colorado. The Cobra Caravan looks like it came straight from the 1960s.



Vintage cars on the track are always fun to watch. This Cobra Daytona was bare aluminum.



This car might look familiar. It was driven by Ken Miles at Lemans in 1966. The car was part of the Ford sweep that beat the Ferraris. Awesome.



Ray and Ann brought their 1968 GT 350. The car is painted purple and has a Paxton supercharger. I started looking at the supercharged cars for an upcoming project. I wanted to get some ideas of how they are installed. Remember, I only work on cars that will be factory correct when they are finished. ;-)



I never walk past a special paint car. This one is WT 6066, special yellow. The car was # 3892.



The conventions are great places to do research. I found confirmation that many early cars actually do not use the common spring clamps. Instead they use a small Whitek screw clamp. Here is a picture of the fuel line with the original clamps on an unrestored car.



The car always had the hood seal screwed into the radiator support. This too is an early production variation.



Don let me take a look at his 1968 GT500KR. I think the car might have original paint. The Northwestern Ford decal was still intact. I will be updating the Northwestern page with more vintage pictures in the fall.



I also spied this Larsen Ford nameplate on a concours 1965. More proof I am ahead of my time. :-)



This Boss 429 has a great color combination. The orange and white really made the car stand out.



The new GT500KR made an appearance. Shelby still makes exciting cars. Unfortunately, he did not attend the convention.



The old and the new GT350H. Black and gold Hertz cars always look cool.



SVTOA also attended the event. If you start to get bored ... you can always start a fire.

My contacts tell me the next convention will be in New Jersey. Please start making plans now to see the Garden State in July of 2008.

I am entertaining the concept of an unofficial SAAC bikini contest for next year's show. Models should submit nude photos with their measurements.


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