Iron Invasion 2016

By Jeff Trilling

Iron Invasion 2016 can best be summed up in two words.. WET and AWSOME.

On October 1st Jeff Trilling organized a club event at a Vintage Hot Rod Show called Iron Invasion at the Woodstock Fairgrounds.  Jeff reports that the club turnout was not very high, but a few die hard members both past and present did attend in spite of truly dismal weather Jeff and his ’52 Pickup was actually the first vehicle in line for entry to the event when the gates opened at 8:00AM.  He was able to stake out a very nice piece of ground very close to the middle of things and he used the amazing signs made for the club by Sam Van Bruggen to save parking spots for club members.  The club provided coffee and donuts. And as you can see for the enclosed photo the tailgate of his truck was put to good use.

Most notable in attendance was John Judge with his ’52 Wrecker.  It is very nice to see John up and about.  But, boy does he have a story to tell.  His truck had sat for a while and shortly after he started it up for the trip to the event the brake pedal went soft.  Somewhere along the way his truck has been upgraded to a dual reservoir master cylinder.  Upon arrival one side was bone dry and smoking hot.  He was able to get more brake fluid for the return trip, but he says that it did not take too long for the pedal to go soft again.  He made it home by hardly using the brakes..Whew!

Anyway, as always there was an amazing variety of vintage, custom, and stock vintage automobiles.  Other than “Vintage Torquefest” this is the show to go to if you like seeing Flathead V8’s with lake pipes, finned heads and multiple carbs.  Not to mention Model A’s with Wieand Heads and Crager 2-Carb manifolds.  One car that caught Jeff’s eye was a ’39 Ford 2-Door Coupe with a Caddy V-8 stuffed under the hood; at first thought you might think it sacrilegious until you hear the owner has paperwork to show the swap was done by GranCor in Chicago back in the day.   Lots of cool stuff.  Jeff left about 10:30AM as the rain was threatening.  However as he was leaving the fairgrounds the non-stop stream of incoming cars still trying to get into the event was still miles long.  Many of the

incoming hot rods had out of state plates.

It is on Jeff’s calendar for next year, in his opinion it is definitely a show worth going to.