On Saturday, the Port Royal Golf Club hosted a car club event that precluded the Hilton Head Concours d'Elegance. The Car Club Showcase represents a more laid back approach, more like a traditional car show than the Concours, with its rigorous judging process.
The 18th green was home on Saturday to several car clubs, including the Chevrolet Corvair Club. Much like our now president-elect, the Corvair marched firmly across the line of convention. An air-cooled engine, producing between 80 and 150-horsepower depending on the variant, sat atop the rear axle. Mind you, this was in the 1960s, when most manufacturers, including General Motors themselves, were on the cusp of the muscle car craze.
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The Corvair represented something different, a design gamble for Chevrolet that would prove sucessful. It was a car of seemingly endless variants. There was a convertible Corvair, a four-door sedan, even Corvair vans and pickup trucks. One such truck, owned by James Law, has covered thousands of miles to different Corvair club events. Law told me of trips from his home in Leesburg, Georgia to Chicago, Boston, Indianapolis, and Pennsylvania. Since restoring the truck in the late-1980s, he's driven it to every event including this one.
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| Jim Law's 1963 Chevrolet Greenbrier Rampside pickup truck. |
The proper name for it is Greenbrier, the tag given to van and pickup variants of the Corvair. It began production in 1961 and could be had with either a 2.4 or 2.7-liter turbocharger flat-six engine. Jim's truck is a "Rampside," an option which meant it had a traditional tailgate at the rear, but also a large panel on the driver or passenger's side that could be folded down for easier loading. He he once used the truck to haul around his welder and acetylene tanks before it was restored.
In line next to Jim's 1963 Rampside was another yellow truck; this one has a small block V8 shoehorned in the bed. And next to the yellow truck was an excellent example of a six passenger Greenbrier van, complete with picnic table.
No doubt the Corvair and all of its variants now have fans that stretch across the globe. There's a strong Corvair following in the Netherlands, as well as in Australia, where the Australian army ordered 500 amphibious Corvair Dynatrack articulated vehicles, but never completed the deal. In 1969, the last year the Corvair was sold, GM could claim nearly two million overall sales.
But the Corvairs were far from the only cool story to come from this years Hilton Head show. Reed and Jan Tarwater, a couple from Greenfield, Indiana, drove their 1972 Fiat 124 Spider to the show. This car immediately caught my eye on Concours day. Reed explained the process he underwent to discover the name of the paint color: "Orange," he said, "that's what it was listed at in the book. I think it's hilarious."
But the bright color is probably the least impressive thing about this Italian sports car. Reed bought the car new in March 1972 because of its advancements and no-nonsense construction. Four wheel disc brakes were standard, a rarity for the time, and the dual overhead cam engine would prove to be a robust power plant for years to come. Since its purchase, Jan and Reed have racked up 128,000 miles on the roadster, saying it's still a daily driver whenever the weather is nice enough.
"We almost sold it once," says Jan. "Thankfully we changed our minds just in time. The dealership hadn't even processed the paperwork yet, and we got it back." Since then they've taken the car to Nova Scotia, and on other smaller trips around the midwest.
Indeed there was something about this year's show that felt more open than it ever had been before. Whenever I poked around a car with my camera, an owner would appear, ready to share stories of their time with it.
This happened again with a miraculous 1972 Mercedes-Benz 600 short-wheelbase limousine.
"People call it the 'Christmas Car,'" said Guy Lewis, the owner who quickly noticed my curiosity in the Moss Green Mercedes. The rich red interior was a special order option. From 1963 to 1981, Mercedes built only 2,600 of these colossal sedans, most going to dignitaries around the world. Guy now owns several, including the green car on display, which has been painstakingly restored.
What's the furthest you've driven it, I asked. By the way he skirted the question, I knew the answer was "Not far." But he told me of another 600 sedan his mechanic picked up. It had been sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey for a decade, and Lewis had no intention of getting it fired up right away. But the car needed to get back to his mechanic's shop in Tennessee. Guy told him to trailer the car back, no silliness. But his mechanic was able to get the car going and drove it back to Tennessee the same day.
As with pretty nearly any Concours event, there were plenty of very early automobiles. These are cars where you can literally see the framework of the automobile, in some cases in its most rudimentary form. Model T's lined up in a row, followed by countless other small-batch cars like the 1908 Moon C and the 1912 Stevens Duryea. On Saturday, the South Carolina tourism board even displayed a pair of very rare cars from Anderson, a manufacturer based in Rock Hill, South Carolina from 1916 to 1925.
Walking through the vendor area to get to the next show field was also an exercise in familiarity. BMW and Porsche were out selling new cars, with the new Panamera as a showpiece for the latter. But past the vendors was some truly fantastic vintage sheet metal.
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| A 1953 Maserati A6GCS on display at the Hilton Head Island Concours d'Elegance. |
Maserati, Alfa Romeo, side-by-side. Any car buff knows this is a match made in racing heaven. While the trident car enjoyed steady crowds, it was the more bubbly Italian I was interested in.
Bodied by Bertone, the Giulietta Sprint Speciale sports a shape on par with the legendary E-Type Jaguar. The same elements are at play: tucked-in wheels and curves unheard of today. In a time before wind tunnels, engineers used methods that were rudimentary at best. They tested aerodynamics by tying pieces of yarn to the leading edges of the car, then driving on the freeway with photographers alongside to document the results. And it seems their quasi-scientific methods worked. This car, which debuted in 1957, held the passenger car record for lowest drag coefficient until 1977, when it was bested by the C6 Corvette.
I'll make no bones about it: Italian sports cars from the 1960s and 70s will always enjoy my complete and undivided attention, despite being a bit fickle (see also: not that well built, unreliable, ephemeral) . You can call it bias if you want; in fact you're entirely right if you do. But something about those classic designs mated to engines whose notes can inspire a generation of car enthusiasts, many whose parents weren't yet born when the cars debuted.
Another of these truly amazing, albeit less-than-sensible, Italian sports cars on display was a 1971 Lancia Fulvia. The Fulvia was a rarity for Lancia in the sense that it was built almost exclusively on its own platform. It was meant to replace the Lancia Appia, a front-engine, rear-drive economy car built to mimic some of the company's more expensive offerings.
The Fulvia, instead, rode on a short wheelbase front engine, front wheel drive platform. This compactness, combined with the punchy V4 engine, made the Fulvia coupe a star on the rally circuit. This was the car that would start Lancia on the road to become the most successful brand in rallying history. The Fulvia alone won the Italian Rally Championship every year from 1965 to 1973, missing out on a 1970 win. It would go on to be replaced by the now-legendary Lancia Stratos HF in 1974, and laid the groundwork for the Delta Integrale and 037, both of which also enjoyed huge rallying success.
As Sunday afternoon rolled around, the crowds were in full swing, and my friend and I had neared the last section of the show field. I noticed a bit of commotion while I was photographing a Peugeot 402 Darl'mat. When I finally looked over, I noticed a tow truck; a bit odd, but not entirely out of place at a classic car show of sorts. But then I paid closer attention to the crowd.
"In the lake. Yeah, a car went into the lake. Just rolled in!" Sure enough, a 1938 Packard had been bumped out of gear and rolled into the water hazard behind where it was parked.
The car was completely submerged, and eventually a diving outfit showed up in a Ford van. I watched as some volunteers showed the diver where to hook the tow truck chains on the axle of a car parked nearby, so he'd know what to do once underwater. Fifteen minutes later, and the tow truck finally started to winch the Packard out.
When the car surfaced, it looked decent at first. But a closer look at the entire car showed that the removable roof mechanism had suffered damage, and that it had definitely sat in a murky pond for nearly an hour.
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Despite the immaculate cars on the Sunday show field, you could still see the effects of hurricane Matthew. Areas were roped off, and wood was still chopped and piled among them. The storm hit just three weeks ago, and it's miraculous how quickly everyone's taken stock and moved forward. Around town, brush piled eight and nine feet high, but through all hours of the weekend, giant dump trucks with cranes and giant trailers attached were criss-crossing the island. Despite the loss of trees, there was astonishingly little damage to buildings. The most I heard of was flooding and minor roof damage in some cases.
The show went on at Port Royal, and you got the sense that the show will almost certainly go on in the region as a whole. And for the Packard owner, the recovery may take just as long.
Check out all of the pictures from the 2016 Hilton Head Island Concours on the Unofficial Stig Facebook page.
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