On April 5th I attended the Old Car Breakfast at Applebee's in Fountain Valley.
The cost was $10.00, and the event attracted about 250 people and 100 cars. We had eggs, potatoes, sausage, pancakes, orange juice, and coffee, all provided by Applebee’s.
After breakfast a drawing was held; tee shirts, hats, skull caps, detailing supplies, and so forth were given away. We were then broken down into two groups and given directions to four businesses that would be conducting tours of their shops.
My first stop was D&P Classic Chevy in Westminster, this is a turnkey shop, and does all restoration and custom work in-house except chrome. D&P specializes in Tri-5 Chevy's, and Nomads, but will build any GM product. They had about 50 vehicles in the shop for service or in various stages of restoration.
The next stop was Huntington Beach Harley Davidson, which was right next door, they furnish both sales and service. They occupy 2 buildings, which total about 22,000 sq ft with a large parking lot in between. One building is for service and the other is their showroom. They must have had 400 to 500 Harley's of all models on site. We were all signed up for the drawing in September when they will be giving away a new Sportster.
My next stop was a couple miles away at Surf City Garage. They manufacture car care supplies and have a large automotive collection. We were allowed to wander through the collection which contains old soda machines, gas pumps, product signs, restored and un-restored cars, trucks, motorcycles, and race cars. A display was set up with videos and product representatives talked to us about their products and their uses. Two Saturdays a month they have tours thru the collection by prior appointment.
The last stop was Detailing Pros, and as it sounds, it is a detail shop. They have an area for working on the cars and a lift so the underside of the car can be cleaned. Their current project was a '57 Ford with original paint, Turquoise and White, it looked like the paint could be saved with a good cleaning and detail job. The owner felt the entire project would take about two days.
As I was leaving the detail shop one of the other guys on the tour directed me to a building around the corner, which turned out to be a shop that specialized in DeLoreans. About 30 DeLoreans were in the shop for service, repair, or conversion to a “Back to the Future” car. The owner told me a stock DeLorean was worth about $45,000.00, but the “Back to the Future” model is worth $100,000.00 and he currently had 4 in the shop.
This turned out to be a great day for Gear Heads and I'm looking forward to next year’s event.