The British Invasion car show at the 2022 Festival of Whales was held on March 6, 2022 in Dana Point. Although it was a reduced schedule for this year, the festivities and events were about the same as prior years. As usual, 30 cars of various British Marques were invited to be shown in the Dana Point marina from 10AM until 4PM on Sunday. Prior to the event, about 16 members of the club met at the Dana West Yacht club for dinner on Saturday night.
The Festival of Whales activities kicked off on Saturday morning when the parade assembled in the mid marina about 9AM and got underway about 10AM, proceeding across Island Way, onto Marina Blvd. to the marina entrance at Golden Latern. Included were about 35 vehicles, mostly convertible classics transporting officials from the city and festival. I drove a young man, Matt Reinhart in my BJ8, who is the graphic designer of the 2022 FOW logo shown above. Matt is a recent graduate of Cal State Fullerton and now working for a sign company, utilizing his graphic skills. He will also be doing freelance graphic design and perhaps will assist in designing one of our future CHW logos? Over the past few years, this annual event was either cancelled or abbreviated due to weather and/or Covid-19. This year it was threatened by weather, as we had rain on Friday and high gusty winds and small craft warnings on Saturday. But on Sunday, we awoke to sunny, beautiful weather, which lasted all day, as you can see from the car show photos. Temperatures we comfortable from the high 60s to mid-70s all day. A large crowd of spectators were in the marina and along the boardwalk, where our cars were displayed. We got a lot of attention, all day long. Never heard more Healey and British car stories in my life! A very pleasant day was had by all.
Attending the show were 10 Austin Healeys, 5 Triumphs, 5 Jaguars, 3 MGs, 2 Lotus’. Club members attending with their classic British cars, include Steve & Cindi Kirby (Healey BJ8), Tony & Debbie Trentacost (Healey BJ8), George Merino (Lotus), Steve Heck (Healey 3000), Dick Ames (TR3), Phil Caliva (Healey BJ8), Tom & Paige Rubinate (Healey BJ8), Greg Aden (Bugeye Sprite), Mike Biss (MG), Anna Johansson (Healey 100), Tom Biss (MGB), Mike & Kathy Scroggie (BN4 Nasty Boy) and Peter & Alexandra Roses (BJ9).
For more festival photos, see https://www.ocregister.com/2022/03/05/magical- migration-parade-floats-through-dana-point- harbor/