Clifton Classic Car Show

The little town of Clifton, Va. has a vintage (well, mostly vintage) car show every year on labor day. Cars just parked all throughout the town...on streets, in driveways, wherever. Anyhow, took some pics today. My GT6 was far from being nice enough to enter, and it was almost entirely American iron...a handful of German and Brits, but they were nice ones.

Here's a link to the album if you want to see more: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/irish44j/Clifton%20Car%20Show%202009/

Highlights: beauty XKE

Nomad with LS1 under the hood

The all-time British hotness...sunbeam tiger

Noble 400

Somehow a pair of 800+hp Vipers just don't look as sweet with all the vintage cars around

several SS's around, all were gorgeous

it was clear which one my wife wanted...

That format is mighty cool! Just park 'em all over town.

Also I'll note that it was my 21-month old daughter's first car show (a day after her firts Home Depot visit).

She was a trooper, enjoying a "loud-off" between the orange 800hp Viper (vipers just sound gross, in my opinion), the blue vintage SS (sounded amazing), and a pair of custom bikes...

Ahh Clifton. Cool little town hidden in the land of HOA subdivisions.

Nice roads though dangerous for teenagers. A couple friends crashed and a two almost lost their lives while out jumping the hills and speeding through the area. Rolling a Cabrio on a dirt road doesn't make for a good time.

I grew up in Springfield and my parents still live there. Where do you live?

NYG95GA - yep, they close the little town to all traffic for the day and spectators park in a big field, so deep in grass that our 4Runner even had some wheeling to do :)

Greg - I live in Burke (not Burke Center, the HOA-nazi-zone) right across the prkway from Clifton. Every weekend I take the GT6 out and cruise Clifton/Fairfax Station when its nice.

And as to your comment = In 1995 during college, driving that same GT6 (in lousy shape and with beat suspension and tires), I lift-throttle oversteered sideway around a hilly corner at 70mph and had the rear end airborne momentarily and within about 2 inches of a fiery death in the woods. The rear end of a GT6 bouncing while skidding sideways is one of the scariest feelings possible......

Now I have better suspension, brakes, and tires and drive more sensibly. I do it a bit quicker in the WRX though :)

Police patrol there more often now too....all the Burke/Springfield/Fairfax rich high school kids like to haul through there in their M3s, GTIs, and sport bikes...so it's smart to stay more conservative so as to avoid tickets :)

Someone likes the rear three-quarter view shots, huh?

Oh, Vipers still look sweet, no matter what else is around. In fact, some cars seem to disappear when there are Vipers around, like pretty much anything GM made in the mid 60's to early 70's. They all looked alike' Chevelles, novas, gtos, 442, cutlass etc etc.
But looks like a sweet show. I like the idea of just parking the cars around town. Seems like a great way to bring business to the whole town, not just the main drag.

Sweet rides for a local show, a Noble, a Rolls, a couple of Vipers are fairly unusual, is this a moneyed area? What is the classic funny car details, those things are awesome

Link isn't working, I had this problem last week and made a slide show.

DrBoost wrote: Someone likes the rear three-quarter view shots, huh?

lol...didn't even notice that. I took some front shots too, just happened not to post them..

DrBoost wrote: But looks like a sweet show. I like the idea of just parking the cars around town. Seems like a great way to bring business to the whole town, not just the main drag.

of course, the whole town is only 1 main road, 4 or 5 side roads, and about 1 square mile :) Google maps it...it's very small.

aussiesmg wrote: Sweet rides for a local show, a Noble, a Rolls, a couple of Vipers are fairly unusual, is this a moneyed area? What is the classic funny car details, those things are awesome Link isn't working, I had this problem last week and made a slide show.

Short answer: yeah, a good bit of money.

Long answer (wikipedia) in case you care.... Fairfax County per capita income is 14th of all counties nationally....Around $37k or so. Clifton is probably the most exclusive town in the county (a D.C. suburb) since minimum lot sizes are 4 acres (excepting the houses in the tiny "downtown" area) with a per capita of $47k (6th in the state among towns). In perspective, I live in nearby Burke, your typical middle-class, white-collar neigborhood where per capita is $34k.

So yes, it's a pretty moneyed area (I scrape by in this county as a feder gov't senior analyst)....and McLean is nearby (per capita of about $80k!). The Clifton show is really onlly for people who have REALLY nice classics....even guys I know with nicely restored TR6s wouldn't even think of bringing them there......although for $15 anyone can get entered in the show (there was a dude with a random beat-up fox-body Mustang GT entered, sitting between two Factory Five Cobras, lol...) I know alot of the cars were trailered to a lot a couple miles away and driven into the town (no trailers in the town)

I might take the rattle-can GT6 next year and enter it and park between the two flashiest cars I can find, just because it would be funny....

Don't know the story on the funny car....there were quite a few of them there, plus alot of rat rods, hot rods, and drag muscle. I didn't have much battery life in the camera so I took mostly pics of my favorites (and hot rods aren't really my scene)...

I wanted to head down there this weekend, but was finally putting a new fuel tank in the TR6. I live just north of Clifton, and drive through there every third day or so going to work. The town itself is definitely quaint. Even the new structures look like they were designed before 1920.

In reply to JoeTR6:

Joe, I've met you before I think....you hang out with Ed Chan and run with CDC, right?

if so, I've always liked watching your TR6 run...I have some old pics

You should give us warning next year, maybe we can bring a bunch of challengers out there and upset the establishment

Now would that be antidisestablishmentarianism?

In reply to aussiesmg:

every year on Labor day...$15 to get in the show :)