Report On Fall Carlisle 2009

First and foremost we had a good time and the weather was pretty nice. The event seemed to be somewhat sparsely attended by both vendors and shoppers compared to past years. The Car Corral had a lot of collector cars for sale including some nice street rods but the spaces on the steepest part of the hill did not have any cars on them, which probably meant they did not sell. Can’t really blame people for not wanting to park their really nice cars there.

Most vendor spaces appeared to have sold with the exception of several indoor spaces, which were conspicuously empty. When it rained Friday night many vendors left. That was the only traffic jam I saw at Fall Carlisle 2009.

The days when people coming to the flea market would back up traffic on I81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike are long gone, most probably due to the Internet, high gas prices and the recession. There were buyers in the isles but the isles were not crowded like they used to be. Some vendors I spoke with thought this might be due to the cost of admission and parking at the flea market being too high. Admission was ten dollars and parking was ten dollars too which, means a buyer would have spent twenty dollars before ever buying one part for their car. A flea market really needs lots of buyers with money to spend in order for it to be worthwhile for the vendors to come. Some vendors I talked to thought that Carlisle Productions should lower the admission price to encourage more buyers to attend the event since many of the buyers may have been hurt financially by the recession. This seems like a good idea since it would probably help everyone including the vendors.

However the lack of crowds did have some advantages. You could get a hotel room in Carlisle any night you wanted during the event, there was no one squatting on our space when we arrived so we could pull right in, and in general the event seemed to be more relaxed and hobbyist oriented like it was in the real early days before it became so big and successful.

The foreigners from Europe still came and were buying cars. We also learned that there is a new country where people love big old American cars. It is Brazil. At least there is no worry about the cars ever being driven in snow there, because they don’t have any.

Now we are getting ready to go to Hershey where there are always many rare and amazing cars to see and photograph. We should have photos of both Carlisle and Hershey 2009 on our site in a couple of weeks.

Stay tuned.

The GM Futurliner

American Dream Cars is officially at the Fall Carlisle Collector Car Swap Meet & Corral. One of the first things that caught our eyes was the very rare GM Futurliner. Only 12 were built and only nine Futurliners are known to exist, five of which are in total disrepair. Photographed below is Futurliner No. 10 restored to its original condition by Don Mayton. Enjoy and stay tuned for more posts from the Fall Carlisle show.

American Dream Cars At Fall Carlisle 2009

American Dream Cars is attending the Fall Carlisle Flea Market October 1st 2009 through October 4th 2009. Visit us at spaces IB75 though IB77 right in front of the grandstand. We look forward to meeting you.

If you can’t make the event don’t worry, American Dream Cars will be there taking photos of all the great cars and we will share them with you after the event.

What’s New at American Dream Cars

Welcome to the first post of the American Dream Cars collector car blog. We plan to write about topics effecting the collector car hobby, the American auto industry, and news about the American Dream Cars website. With all the things that have happened to the American auto industry in the last year we should have lots to write about.

The American Dream Cars website has had an upgrade or maybe we should call it a resto-mod restoration. This blog is part of it. We have also made it easier to submit your car ads, update your car ads, and delete your car ads right from the home page. In addition we have added a new section that has photos of some of the nice looking and interesting collector cars that have been advertised and sold on our site over the years. We call it Collector Car Photos and you can see it by Clicking Here. There is also a link to this new section from the American Dream Cars Home Page.