30th Annual Fabulous Fords Forever Car Show held at Knotts Berry Farm April 19th

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The Ford Car Club Council will be presenting the 30th Annual Fabulous Fords Forever Car Show held at Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA on April 19th. This year the Show will be celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Lincoln Continental, 60th Anniversary of the Thunderbird, 55th Anniversary of the Falcon and the 50th Anniversary of the Shelby Mustang. On display will be Ford's all new 2015 Mustang and as well as several other Fords significant cars.  Entertainment provided by Horsepower for an Hour (Automotive talk radio show) with live interviews from several celebrity guests, who will be announced in early April. Last year we had Parnelli Jones and George Follmer in addition to members of the 1960's Ford Drag Team and several of their great cars.  The show expects over 1,700 plus cars and trucks including but not limited to the Model T?s, T-Birds, F-series Trucks, Broncos, Pintos, Vans, European-Fords, NHRA & NASCAR Ford Race Cars, and many more. Bring the family and friends and see the Largest One Day All Ford Car Show and Enthusiasts Gathering in the West!
This is a perfect excuse to spend the weekend at the Knotts Resort and enjoy discounted theme park tickets, which will be on sale at the merchandise tent along with some cool Fabulous Fords Forever goodies.
The Fabulous Fords Forever Car Show, as mentioned above, is the largest Annual Ford enthusiast gathering and Ford car show in the Western United States. With support from the Ford Motor Company and Knotts Berry Farm, the car show is organized by the Ford Car Club Council. This council consists of 40 plus Ford Car Clubs and over 200 volunteers. Fabulous Fords Forever is free to spectators. For more information or to register your Ford vehicle, visit FabulousFordsForever.com.

57 Fords International is well represented on the Ford Car Club Council that puts on this show.  Every year we have a pretty good representation of 57 Ford cars, wagons, trucks and Rancheos.  Rick Crawford and Bob Lee are both active members of the Council and we could really use some help this year with not only showing your 57's, but in helping on the day of show with parking the 1,700+ cars expected.  Parking volunteers get to park their cars before the gates of the show open to admit the other registered show cars.  Our 57 Fords are always parked in the 1949-59 Ford car aisle and if you volunteer to be a parker, you not only get to park together with us, but you also get a continental Breakfast provided by the Ford Car Club Council.  The attached photo shows the 2007 Milestone area celebration of our beloved 1957 Fords.  Rick and I hope to have the 1957 Fords be celebrated again in 2016 for our 60th year Anniversary.  I believe, other than the 1932 (Deuce) Fords our 1957 are the only single year Ford that has been featured as a Milestone Car.

Bob
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Guys & Gals:

Every year I post information about the upcoming Knott's shows, but I never seem to hear from anyone regarding coming out to the show.  I'd certainly like to meet some of our local 57 Fords Forever enthusiasts and check out your rides.  It sure would be great to share some time and conversation with the Southern California 57 owners like our Mid-West, Southern and East Coast brothers do and Knott's seems to me to be a pretty good venue to do so.

Bob
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[DanTudor57]

I'll be there, but won't be registering any time soon. I hope to have my car drivable by them but it will most likely be mid way through some body repairs. likely in primer.  I'll just be there to check out the show.

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Hey Dan:

Thanks for the reply.  Rick and I will be there.  I will probably be either in and around the Milestone Car area with the Ford Drag Team, as I am responsible for hosting these VIP's and am the Council's Secretary.  Rick will probably be in or around the Ford Car Club Council's Merchandise & Memorabilia area, as he is the Council's Treasurer.  But, when we can get away from those duties Rick and I will have access to a golf cart to get over to our cars and to otherwise assist with the show.  We're looking forward to meeting up with you and other 57 Fords Forever enthusiasts at the show.

Bob
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[John Palmer]

Bob, Thanks for the early heads up. 

We have attended this show many times with our 66 Mustang, but seem to have missed it during the last few years.  It's now on the calendar, and we will be attending with our Ranch Wagon.

John

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Just a few more weeks until registration closes and there is no day of show registration.  We have over 1,100 cars registered so far and looking to have up to 1,800 to fill up our available spaces.  We would like to have a good turn out of 57's and unfortunately mine won't be there this year as it is back in the shop.

In addition to lots of car eye candy like you see in most car shows, we will also have a number of Ford's current and past celebrities at the show.  People like NASCAR's Scott Preutt and Drifter Justin Pawlak or Drag Racings Butch Leal (historical), John Calvert (current CobraJet owner/driver) with one of his CobraJets, as well as Larry Knapp, Stan Blosk and Phil Featherston with their Nostalgia SOHC powered Mustang, Falcon & an original Thunderbolt Drag Cars.  Horsepower for an Hour personalities will be there as the Master of Ceremonies and a great sound system engineer will provide music for the entire show. We have also arranged for all the major Ford Manuafactures to be at the show including Ford Racing, Shelby American, Roush , Saleen and a number of Ford related vendors tires, superchargers, body panels, suspension and drive train parts.  Come out, bring the whole family to enjoy the cars and/or go to the Knott's Berry Farm Amusement Park a fun day for all.

Bob           &     Rick Crawford
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Well we had a great show yesterday, over 1,800 Ford & Ford related cars on display in 72 degree cloudless weather.  I've attached the Media Fact Sheet prepared by our Ford representative and after I've had a chance to down size the photos I took I'll post some.

Bob
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Here are some photos from the Knott's Fabulous Fords Forever show.  These are the Drag Team cars past and current that I was responsible to have come to the show.  The celebrities, Butch Leal and Linda Vaughn and the cars and car owners had a great time signing photos and talking history past and current.  These first two cars both belong to Larry Knapp.  He currently campaigns his Stampede in Nostalgia Drags throughout the country.  He also has just about completed the Les Ritchey Tribute A/FX Mustang in honor of Les Ritchey who was one of the Ford greats back in the 60's until he was tragically killed in an accident at Irwindale in 1966.

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These next photos are of a beautiful 1955 T-Bird recently completed and powered by an injected SOHC cammer.  This car was a real standout and the photos don't really do it justice.  He brought this car down from the San Francisco area.  I'll send some more of the drag car photos later and also some nice 57 Fords, too.

Bob
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The last two of the Ford Drag Team cars on display this year at Knott's are an original 1964 Thunderbolt owned by Phil Featherston and one of John Calvert's CobraJets (upgraded to 2014 configuration). Of the approximately100 Thunderbolts originally built about 65 are known to still exist.  Only about 25 ? 30 are together and still running, Phil's is one of the 2 or 3 that are still raced in Nostalgia Drags today.  John has been a highly successful drag racer for many years campaigning one of the original 1968 CobraJets, also one of the newer 2008 CobraJets, currently he and his son campaign his 2014 CobraJet and he has a 2015 CobraJet on order.  These guys and Butch Leal have great stories of their racing careers spanning the years from the very early 1960's to present.  It is a wonderful experience each year to listen to them sharing the history of the people and cars we cheered for.

My next post will concentrate on the 57's at the show this year.  If you don't see yours, hopefully you will join us next year at this great event.

Bob
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Guys:

Here are the 57's I saw at our show a week ago.  4 photos to each reply.

Bob
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Here are 4 more.

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Here are another 4 photos.

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Guys:

Here are the last of the photos I took of 57's this year.  It is possible there might have been a few more, possibly parked with friends in another area of the show, or maybe a Ranchero or two parked with the trucks.  But with 1,800 cars spread out over a very large parking complex it is tough to see everything.  Please join us next year with your 57's, it would be great to see more examples of the cars we like so much.

Bob
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[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for posting those, Bob. All great looking cars. Unfortunate too see every Sunliner had it's roof stuck 1/2 way down...must be a common defect to all hang up in the same spot.
You wouldn't have a side shot of that black Del Rio wagon (shown in reply #12)?? It's got the wheels I was thinking about as an alternative choice to torque thrusters type.
How's your car coming along, btw?