Gallery: 2014 Orphan Car Show takes Ypsilanti by storm
Everyone knows that rain and car shows don’t mix, but the Orphan Car Show only comes to Ypsilanti, Mich. once a year and we all know that there’s no stopping a determined air-cooled Franklin or Lagonda LG6 Saloon DeVille driver.
Around 240 cars registered for the 2014 event, but we’d be surprised if two-thirds of those actually showed. We were too busy to count, though, because the cars that did show up -- cars belonging to owners who realize that even vintage paint is generally not water-soluble -- were far too interesting for us to dwell on numbers.
Fortunately, the rain mostly held off until the afternoon. The Huron River was flowing fast but didn’t top its banks, and the alternating stormclouds and blue skies made for some dramatic lighting. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday, especially if you packed galoshes.
The idea behind the Orphan Car Show seems simple enough, but you’ll quickly notice some familiar badges among the Studebakers, Desotos and Graham-Paiges. Renault and Citröen sneak in because they’re no longer sold in the States. You can technically get a Morgan Three-Wheeler here again, but nobody is going to complain about seeing a vintage example.
And the Corvairs? Obviously, Chevrolet is still alive and kicking, but the rear-engined cars were built at the Willow Run Assembly Plant just miles from the park where the show is held every year. Think of them as honorary orphans.
Wagons were featured this year, which meant everything from tiny Crosleys to a beastly, wood-grained, coffin-nosed 1976 AMC Matador. An earlier AMC, a 1956 Rambler Cross Country Wagon, pushed the limits of fake woodgrain coverage two decades earlier.
We were honored to judge two classes: Packard and Kaiser-Frazer. Our favorite in the first group was a 1955 Clipper Panama hardtop -- the total lack of actual Packard badges on the car speaks to the automaker’s efforts to turn the Clipper line into a semi-standalone entry-level luxury marque. V8-powered, the car’s self-leveling torsion-bar suspension was operational. The car even made it out to the Woodward Dream Cruise last year.
Competition for the Kaiser-Frazer (built at the same Willow Run factory as the Corvair) class was surprisingly tough -- and how often can you really say that? -- with a stunning teal ’48 Frazer Manhattan and an immaculate Henry J catching our eye early on. We ultimately gave our nod to a 1951 Kaiser Deluxe Traveler “utility sedan.” The closest K-F got to building a wagon, the Traveler (and its Frazer counterpart, the Vagabond) looked like a conventional sedan until the two-part tail piece was opened -- essentially, it’s a proto-hatchback.
Sure, most of the cars come from Michigan, Ontario and Ohio, but it’d be a mistake to dismiss the Orphan Car Show as a local gathering. The sheer range of seldom-seen and oddball stuff, plus the friendly owners and generally laid-back atmosphere at Riverside Park, make a visit to Ypsilanti’s historic Depot Town well worth it. Make the trip next September, and swing by the newly refurbished Hudson Motor Car Museum while you’re at it.
