Annual Camden Car Show

Founders Day

On a lovely mid summers day on Saturday July 16th a small but enthusiastic contingent of our club members made the drive to Paris Hill, Maine to attend the annual Founders Day to visit the fabulous Bill Bahre Auto Collection, open only one day a year to the public as a fundraiser for the Paris Hill Library. It’s not every day that you get to see a lineup of 5 perfectly restored and dazzling Dusenbergs, and then wander on through the building to take in maybe a dozen equally perfectly restored vintage Packards, with a few Alfa Romeos, Mercedes, Hispano Suizas,, Cadillacs and numerous other marques on display, which are rumored to be only a sampling of Bill’s entire collection. And as an added bonus, a quick glance at the western horizon from over the pool pavilion behind the Bahre mansion on this clear day provides a view all the way to MT Washington in New Hampshire. The reserved parking set up for our club’s cars gave the many visitors a chance to check out our lineup of well turned out Austin Healey, MGs, Jaguars and a Datzun 260Z.

After the show most of our clubs attendees decamped to the neighboring town of Norway for an outdoor but covered and shielded from the sun lunch at the Norway Brew Pub. And I even got a free ride, navigating for George in his recently acquired Jaguar 420 on its first major road trip. All went well and we returned home safe and sound with no kissing parts yet discovered.

Camden Classic Cup Regatta Show

For the fourth year in a row, with a one year break when the event was cancelled in 2021 for Covid, our club has been invited to display our cars as part of the Camden Classic Cup Regatta, featuring classic sail boats. Our host, Lyman Morse Shipyard, reserves their parking lot on the far (East) side of Camden Harbor for us, which provides a pleasant venue for displaying our cars AND as a bonus gives us a front row seat, pier side, for the ‘Parade of Boats’ that starts in bound on the east side of the harbor, does a 180 at the end and goes outbound on the west side of the harbor.

This year, due to restrictions in the Lyman Morse parking lot were were limited to 21 cars, and the registration list filled up fast. Fortunately a few early registrants had to cancel out (unfortunately for them actually) so as it turned out everyone on the wait list was able to get one of the coveted parking slots on the eve of the event.

Once again, the club displayed a nice variety of sports cars from Aston Martin to Morgan to MG to Triumph, Morris, Austin Healey, Porsche and perhaps a few others I don’t recall. It was another lovely day and over 100 amazing vintage sailboats from numerous custom builders participated in the parade. The veterans even brought folding chairs for their front row seats—good thinking.

Since Camden was pretty crowded with event participants and tourists, the group decided on the good suggestion of several of our members, to proceed out of town a bit to the Ports of Italy restaurant for our typical event lunch. Which makes me wonder if we have become a car club, or a lunch club with cars? I guess both works.