39th Annual Pate Swap Meet - Texas Motor Speedway

[briney]

I plan to be there Saturday early A.M.

Patrick Dallas /TX   

The 39th annual Pate Swap Meet will be held on the paved surface outside the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, on April 28 through May 1, 2011. The Pate Swap Meet, one of the three largest swap meets in the country, has more than a quarter of a century history of auto swap meets and is recognized internationally for its diversity of automotive products offered by its vendors. Vendors from across the country will fill the vast acreage with everything automotive -- from cars to hard-to-find car parts and related items.

The Pate Swap Meet is the fund raising effort of seventeen Texas antique automobile clubs. The first swap meet held by this organization took place on the grounds of the Pate Museum of Transportation in 1973. This event grew tremendously during the 26 years that it was held on the grounds surrounding the museum. Changes in the long term usage of much of this property forced the swap meet to seek a new location. In 1998, the Pate Swap Meet moved to the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. These new facilities provide ample parking for all visitors to the swap meet, easy access to and from Interstate 35, unlimited space for camper parking during the event, and a vast amount of paved space for the swap meet to expand in the future.

[RICH MUISE]

Just got back from it early this morning. I made a 2 day thing of it this year..got there early thursday afternoon and did 1/2 of it, then went back Friday and did the other 1/2. About 10 hours total. Bought a '57 cowl grille I'm going to cut up to make a grille for my hood scoop. As usual not to many '57 parts there unless they were for chevies. These swap meets amaze me..with all of the tri five chevies you see everyplace at shows and in mags, how is it there are still so many untouched project cars like nomads, 2 dr htps, and coverts. out there??? there were 3 '57 fords for sale..a decent driver 4dr custom, a badly repaired retractable, and a 2 dr custom that had a horible rust problem in the wierdest places you could imagine. the roof had rust holes across just above the windshield..the tops of the body and doors were rusted thruall the way around just under the window line...the two cowl outside pices on either side of the air vent were rusted through. It was almost like this car had been ouside upside down for years..allowing water to settle in places it normally would never reach...that to me would be the only thing that would explain the rust thru in all the wierd places.
Met an owner of '57 fords there (Randy from Oklahoma)...more than 30 of them in his collection..will do a post on him later because he is wanting to thin out his herd...he told me of a guy in Texas who has a much larger collection of '57 fords. Hopefully I'll be able to get some info on him to you guys also.   Rich

[KnottGarage]

I also went to pate on Friday and Saturday. I met a couple of guys from up in Oklahoma, one from Stillwater who had a parts business and another one from Tulsa who told me of a few personal salvage yards he uses around that area.  I'm going to meet up with the guy from Tulsa to be introduced to an older gentleman that has mentioned to him he is thinking of crushing some of his old fords.  Hopefully I can get some info to post on here about what all he has and save some of the cars.  I don't really understand why people resort to scraping a bunch of usable classic cars, it just makes me sick. 

Once I get the locations I'll let anyone interested know about them. 

[briney]

That one really did have odd rust.