One of my favorite activities to do in the summer is to attend some of the wonderful classic car shows held in Michigan. The image above comes from the 2012 Concours d’Elegance of America held at St. John’s, near Northville, Michigan. This Concours is one of the best in the country and they always have a great collection of classic automobiles. It’s always nice to see cars from other countries or manufacturers that you don’t encounter every day. One of my favorite time periods are cars from the 30’s. I think car design was really taking off during this period. At this year’s Concours, there was a group of cars produced by Delahaye.

Here’s another shot taken at the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America held in Plymouth, Michigan. This one shows a detail of the engine cowling of a 1940 Packard 180 Convertible Victoria. The Packard Motor Car Company started life in 1899 as the Ohio Automobile Company. Packard started the company after accepting a challenge from Alexander Winton to build a better car than was being produced by the Winton Motor Carriage Company. The Winton company was one of the first companies to sell motor cars and Packard had complained to Winton about the quality of his car. Packard changed the name of his company to the Packard Motor Car Company in 1902 and moved to Detroit in 1903.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Gilmore Car Museum for the annual Classic Car Club of America show. This year the show highlighted cars manufactured in Indiana. One of the key companies in Indiana was the Auburn Cord Duesenberg automobile company which manufactured cars in Auburn, Indiana. These cars are some of my favorite because they had such interesting designs. I particularly like Auburns and Cords. At the show, this car was referred to as a ‘1937 Auburn Phaeton’, but the car is actually a Cord, probably a model 812 (although I suppose it is possible that it was marketed as an ‘Auburn’, some car buff will certainly correct me if I’m wrong) Late model Cords have a distinctive design created by legendary automobile designer Gordon Buehrig. The front end has a shape somewhat like that of a coffin so these cars are sometimes referred to as ‘coffin nosed Cords’. Anyway, I love the design and I love to take pictures of this line of cars.

This is another in a series of ‘photo art’ images which shows some of the front side details of a 1936 Auburn 852 Phaeton automobile. The ’36 Auburn was designed by legendary car designer Gordon Buehrig and exhibits many interesting touches. I’ve always been attracted to the Auburn’s and Duesenbergs with the chrome exhaust pipes coming out of the side of the engine compartment. To me these exhaust pipes give a feeling of power to the automobile. This particular automobile, when new, sold for $1725, which is roughly equivalent to $26,000 after adjusting for inflation. Pretty good car for $26,000.

A couple of years ago I attended my first vintage car show. It was the Orphan Car Show held annually in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Each year the show features a handful of ‘orphan’ cars, cars whose maker or nameplate has been out of business for 7 years or more. In 2007, the Checker car company was one of the companies featured.