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VOL. 44, NO. 34 FRIDAY AUGUST 23, 2013
The Cars Of August:
Macungie’s Awkscht Fescht Turns 50 By David Iams
as Awkscht Fescht, the huge annual August automobile show, flea market and weekend festival in the Lehigh County town of Macungie, traditionally draws 40,000 visitors. When I arrived early at last Friday’s opening and saw many Buicks, it brought to mind a selfevaluation once made by a modest but well-known Philadelphia home builder. Compared with his far higher-octane colleagues, such as Toll Brothers or Jeffrey Orleans, the builder, Dick Dilsheimer, said simply: “We make Buicks.” Buicks were on prominent display at the show’s entrance in Macungie Memorial Park as the featured car at the 2013 Fescht, which this year is marking its 50th anniversary. Since the first Awkscht Fescht in 1964 (a Pennsylvania Dutch phrase meaning August Festival) it has traditionally featured a significant auto brand or style each year. In 2005, for instance, it was the long defunct Hudson and in 2006, it was “the year of the woodie.” There were about 50 Buicks among the more than 3,000 antique and classic cars exhibited Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Aug. 2 to 4. They ranged from tailfinned models of 50 years ago to a 1929 four-door sedan with
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Vehicles in the antique and classic car show included this 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air with a drive-in restaurant tray bearing imitation fast food. Note the chrome engine parts.
69,808 miles on it that was one of 30,356 made and was sold new for $935, according to a signboard nearby. Why the reawakened memory? Like Dilsheimer’s houses, Buick was not just a General Motors brand name; it was an upper middle class status symbol. Among the earliest Buick exhibitors to arrive Friday were Sally and Clarence Getz, members of the local Free Spirit chapter of the Buick Club of America. Less than an hour after the gates opened at 6 a.m. and while most of the 42-acre park was still deserted (although breakfast sandwiches, coffee and soft drinks were on sale at the food court), the Getzes were busy with the two Buicks they had brought to the show from their collection of four. GM Chevrolets were for economy, Clarence Getz said as he sat at the wheel of one, a 1967 Skylark. As to Cadillacs, “they Vendor Don Wedde holds up the were for flare.” But in the town where he grew grill of a 1959 Edsel. He hoped an up during the Depression, Getz Edsel restorer might buy it.
recalled, the lumber yard owner and the town doctor both drove Buicks. Owning one was a sign of middle class stability. “It was a comfort level,” he said. As the morning progressed, more Buicks arrived. A dozen or so parked along with the Getzes’ car in an open-sided pavilion, the rest in a nearby field. Scores of exhibitors and vendors also set up shop at different sites, either in other park structures or in the open area extending to the park’s northern and eastern boundaries. There were the usual flea market, arts and crafts and antique items. In the park’s main building were watercolors and other paintings. Elsewhere there was Depression glass, Amish woodworking and other crafts, such as the wooden silhouetted plaques carved with a scroll saw by John Trotter, which depicted trains, cars, crosses, and animals, including a tiger head with silhouetted stripes. Trotter, of East Greenville, wanted only $35 for the tiger, even though it took 10 hours to carve. “I do it for the joy of it,” he said.
Other flea market goods were more familiar: old wooden soft drink cases, rusting antique tools and fabrics. At one outdoor site George Garra added a good brass belt buckle to his collection of
three dozen. Not surprisingly, many of the vendors offered auto-related items. Pat McCann of J.C. Taylor Inc., which has been offering antique auto insurance for 50 years, explained that coverage for vintage vehicles (those 25 years old or more) was the same as that for a daily driver but at a better rate, $100 a year for a $10,000 car. While antique and vintage vehicles tend to be driven less, Taylor also requires that they be kept in a garage. On a more material note, Rick and Kim Rau, doing business as the Estate Wizards, offered dozens of old license plates at two-figure prices, both American and foreign, including one from Ethiopia and two dating to about 1960 from the former West Germany for the private vehicles of U.S. forces personnel stationed there. A vendor doing business as Hotrod Herman offered self-made gear shift knobs shaped like Frankenstein heads and other bizarre figures in the $50 range. “Everyone loves skulls,” he said. Vendors closer to the Buick exhibition area, such as the Nifty Fifties Chevrolet Parts, tended to focus on items sought by the many vintage car restorers attracted to (Continued on page 2)
Clarence Getz is behind the wheel of his 1967 Buick Skylark. Buicks were the featured car at this year’s Awkscht Fescht in the Lehigh County town of Macungie.
Checking in at the Awkscht Fescht’s Herb Farnsher gets ready to crank up a Model A engine at the Lehigh main gate; four hundred classic and Valley Model A Club. Many Awkscht Fescht visitors were there, looking for vintage cars were expected at Vendor Hotrod Herman shows his self-made gear shift knobs shaped like parts to restore their own antique and vintage vehicles. Friday’s opening session. Frankenstein heads and other bizarre figures.