Tupelo, Ms All Ford Cruise

[JimNolan]

    Went to the All Ford Show in Tupelo, Ms last weekend. I met a man there with a 57 Ford Custom with a 427 2 4barrel 4 speed there. I asked him if by chance he was a member of 57FordsForever.Com and he looked at me wild eyed and said " I don't have anything to do with computers, my ex-wife cost me $250,000 dollars with a computer". He was busy trying to get his starter fixed so I didn't bother him to get perticulars on his car. Nice car though. There were about 100 cars there. Beautiful cars. There were no trophies or plaques given away but they had drawings for money.
    When I pre-registered for the show, I registered two cars, the 57 and the 63. Well, we changed our mind about taking both cars and just took the 63. When I got down there, we got two goody bags, two Museum Passes and meal tickets for all six people in my party. My 57 had registration no. 8 and the 63 had registration no. 9. The reason we took the 63 was because it needed a shake-down trip to uncover any problems (no problems other than I needed sealant around the windshield).
    At the end of the show they had the drawings for the longest distance driven ($200), about ten $100 dollar drawings and the finally was a $500 drawing. I got beat out on the longest distance drawing by a man that drove from Stanton, Va. I sat and waited thru the other $100 drawings and didn't win anything. The final drawing for the $500 was given to a 1957 Ford Fairlane registration no. 8 from Warsaw, Indiana. My 57 come thru for me again. That 57 has been a blessing to own even when it sets in the garage. At this time in my life I need some good things happening for me, the trip to MS to see the kids and go to the car show at Tupelo was one of them. Jim
   
 

[RICH MUISE]

Sounds like a great trip Jim...Did you get to keep the 500. even though you're '57 wasn't there?, and how did the actual trip go...anything turn up on the '63?...and how did you like everything on it's first long trip since rebuild.
Rich

[JimNolan]

Rich,
  The trip went really well. The only problem that developed was a leaky windshield ( had the same problem with the 57 at first). The car didn't get hot sitting in traffic. The air conditioner works great. I averaged 13.78 mpg over the 1400 miles I put on it. I was getting 16 mpg doing 70mph on the interstate and I was getting about 11.6 mpg for the secondary-town roads. I kept records for every time I got gas and figured mileage at each stop. The 13.78 mpg was overall gallons for overall mileage. I'd hoped for better but I'll take what I'm getting.
   Yes, I got to keep the money. The drawing was for registration numbers, not the car. There were a lot of enclosed car haulers there. I've never seen such nice cars anywhere I've ever been. I was beginning to think I'd brought a rat-rod to that car show. One guy said that Friday night was the first time his car had gotten wet from rain in the seven years he owned it. "Poor baby".
    It rained all the way home Sunday. The drivers seat is comfortable but the passenger seat seems too hard. It used a 1/2 qt. of oil but I change oil at 3000 miles anyway, so that will be OK.
   The people putting on the Cruise were great guys and we really enjoyed going down there. We toured the Poteet Estate in Holly Springs also. That man has a lot of nice Fords. There were about 50 cars making the trip to Holley Springs and some guys actually loaded their cars in enclosed trailers to make the 70 mile trip up there.
   There were guys that brought 406/427 Galaxies to the show that drove all the way and didn't mind them getting wet. Some said they were doing 4 grand at 60 mph. These were show cars to say the least.  Jim