The beginning of the end at the Turner Days Car Show

The annual Turner Days Car Show in the Turner High School parking lot is always sort of a bittersweet event.  It’s great, of course, because there are always lots of nice cars in attendance.  But it is one of the last significant car shows in the Kansas City area each year, so it always makes me a little bit sad.

It isn’t very often that we get a Hudson to profile in these stories, but this is the second nice one in two weeks.  This is a ’53 Hornet, which is pretty similar to what Doc Hudson was in Cars.  Vincent Schoenberger from Kansas City, Kan., brought this minty green example to the show, and that “Twin-H Power” under the hood looked pretty darn cool.  And look at those hood hinges on that thing.  They might have been in the way when you wanted to do a tune up, but by gosh, the hood wasn’t going to fall on your head.

This ’40 Ford Deluxe Coupe looks just how an early ‘60s custom should look to me.  First of all, you just can’t go wrong with the classic lines of a ’40 Ford Coupe.  But then you lower it a little, put those chrome wheels and Spiders on there, and fill up the cabin with white tuck and roll upholstery and a (very small) ’59 Chevy steering wheel, and you have a recipe for greatness.  John and Glenda Carter’s car had other nice touches such as the chrome nerf bars and classic Stewart-Warner gauges to round out the look.

Did you know that the Crosley Hotshot was named as one of Time Magazine’s 50 worst cars of all time?  Yes, they were dangerously tiny.  Yes, they were slow.  Yes, they were unreliable.  But look at this ’49 Crosley today.  There’s no denying how cute it is.  I just want to pinch its little cheeks.  There also happened to be a little toe-headed little kid sitting in the driver’s seat when I snapped this, which just adds to the adorableness. 

I don’t typically call out many late-model four-cylinder cars here, but let’s make an exception with this 2007 Pontiac Solstice GXP.  I’ve driven these and been around them quite a bit, and I really think they’re an underappreciated little car.  They look just like the concept car that they were based on.  Actually, they remind me of concept cars from the Motorama days.  It’s sort of a modern day Club De Mer, or even the first Corvette.  260-hp is nothing to sneeze at in a little guy like this either.  These were billed as sort of a competitor to the Miata, but I think this has a lot more pizazz. 

So what do you like—race cars; muscle cars; dogs?  Whether your taste runs toward ’73 Cadillac Eldorados or chopped Econoline vans, there was a little bit of everything at the Turner Days Car Show.  See 210 pictures in the slideshow below, or click this link for an even better version of the slideshow.