Some Good Variety Was On Display At Cruizin' Fur K-9

The Cruizin' Fur K-9 show at Summit View Academy in support of the Independence Police K-9 Project brought out a nice variety of different cars and trucks. There were some that are regularly seen at open car shows and a few that were much more rare. Among the vehicles on display was a 1970 Plymouth GTX, a Chevy Apache pick up truck, a Chevy Bel Air, a custom Ford street rod, a 1964 Valiant, a 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser, and a Mustang.

Weather Threatened Cruizin' Fur K-9

The rain had started the day before and the forecast originally had the weather staying bad through the day of the Cruizin' Fur K-9 show. Each forecast seemed to have the rain starting and ending sooner. In face, the skies started to clear right around registration time and soon the lot at Summit View Academy began to fill with some amazing vehicles, all in support of the Independence Police k-9 Program. Among the cars on display was a rare 1933 Chevrolet Series CA Eagle. The Eagle was a very short lived name. Introduced for the 1933 model year to replace the Series BA Confederate, the Eagle name was dropped in February of 1933 in favor of the Master. Bringing out a new car in the midst of the Great Depression was a risky move but Chevy managed to sell over 450,000 of the Series CA.

The Eagle was just one of the many fantastic cars on display for this show. Also in the lot was a Dodge Challenger, dune buggy, a 1933 T-Bucket hot rod (notice the symbol over the Ford logo), a 1972 Monte Carlo, a Chevelle, and an El Camino.

Cruzin' Fur K-9

Summit View Academy was the site for the Cruizin' Fur K-9 show in support of the Independence Police K-9 Program. Fighting off early rain and threatening skies the show managed to draw around 50 vehicles in support of this fabulous charity. Among the cars on display was a 1971 Chevy Monte Carlo, a custom street machine that started life as a Chevy truck, a Pontiac Firebird convertible, a Ford Mustang convertible, a Ford F1 van, a 1935 Ford 5 window coupe, and a 1952 Ford Customline.

Foreingers Invaded Lawrenceburg

This 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III appeared in the 1981 film classic Cannonball Run among various other films, television shows, commercials, and even a Morris the Cat calendar. For full disclosure, the car belongs to my friend Jamie Schworer who even let me use it for an award winning short that was made several years ago. This beauty caught a lot of attention at the Cruisin' For A Cure For ALS show in Lawrenceburg but it was one of many foreign imports that were on display that day. Also at the show was a Lexus, a pair of Volkswagen Beetles, a Subaru, a 1934 Mercedes Benz 500K special roadster, a 2012 Jaguar, and a Fiat.

All My Friends Know They Were At the Cruisin' For A Cure For ALS Show

Before starting to read this blog it's important to play this song: Low Rider.

The 1950s saw a massive car culture boom, especially in Southern California where it became popular to radically customize your car. One cool concept was to cut the springs and lower the entire vehicle. It got to the point that a law was passed, Section 24008 of the California Vehicle Code. This made it illegal for a car to have any part of the car sit lower than the bottom of the wheel rims. So to beat the law, in 1959, an ingenious mechanic named Ron Aguirre came upon the idea to put hydraulics on his car. That way, when he was pulled over for driving too low, he could simply flip some switches and raise the car and avoid a ticket. When others saw what he had done they flocked to copy his solution. Hydraulics in cars brought about the low rider and the rest is automotive history. 

A group of low riders all showed up at this year's Cruisin' For A Cure For ALS show in Lawrenceburg. Despite being tucked away on a side lot, they managed to draw a large group of people who admired, not only the cars, but the unique positions they could attain. All my friends know a low rider. And they saw some in Lawrenceburg.

Chevy Had Some Autos On Display At Cruisin' For A Cure For ALS

Since 1911 the Chevrolet Motor Car Company has been building automobiles. Founded by brothers Louis and Arthur Chevrolet and the then former head of the young General Motors Corporation, William C. Durant, the company grew enough that by 1918 Durant had used it to gain control over GM. By 1929 the Chevy International had ousted Ford as the best selling car in America. The Chevrolet vehicles on display at the Cruisin' For A Cure For ALS show were a bit older but still impressive. Among them was a modified 1963 Nova, a Biscayne, a Corvair, a Camaro, a Chevelle, and another Camaro.

Lawrenceburg Played Host to a Number of Pontiac Models

 In the grand General Motors scheme of having a brand to fit every financial niche, Pontiac was introduced in 1933 to sit just above Chevrolet and below Oldsmobile. Initially it was a "companion" car to GM's Oakland brand but quickly outpaced it's older sibling and, in 1931, just a few years after it was introduced, Pontiac's popularity led GM to close the Oakland division. Sadly, due to restructuring at GM, the Pontiac division was closed in 2010. But it left behind a number of fantastic automobiles and a number of them were on hand for the Cruisin' To A Cure For ALS show in Lawrenceburg. Among the cars on display was a Tempest, a couple of Trans Ams, a Firebird, and a number of GTO models from different years and generations.