Car Show at Southport’s Pequot Library Draws Very Old Models

SOUTHPORT, CT – The Velocity in Volumes Car Show staged Saturday on the grounds of the Pequot Library was markedly different from most other cars shows. 

For one, it spotlighted much older cars than is common – horseless carriages from 1916 and earlier, including a stunning dark blue 1911 Cadillac with cream-colored wood spoke wheels.

Secondly, it offered games – or at least one game – involving cars.

The show was staged by the Fairfield County region of the Horseless Carriage Club of America and the Connecticut Seaport Car Club. 

“We’re not a club that really loves to just sit behind our cars and let people ogle at the cars. We like to have fun with them,” said show organizer Shenton King, who owns a 1910 Pope-Hartford that he drives about 500 miles a year.

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Check out RIDE-CT’s video of the show…

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Having fun at the show meant staging a “bumpy bubble challenge” which had the Cadillac, owned by Nile Blanck of Orange, driven over a series of logs while a passenger attempted to balance a tray of champagne flutes.

“If they can make it to the end of the bumpy track here, they get to have a glass of champagne,” said King, adding “We like to have fun with the old-school car show games that they used to have at these things in the ’40s and  ’50s.”

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Quality exceeded quantity at the inaugural show, which attracted about 40 cars. There were old Bentleys as well as old models built by Pierce-Arrow, Hupmobile, Cunningham and Porsche.

Mike Virr of South brought the 1934 Riley Ulter Imp race car that he bought about 1990 and spent seven years restoring.

“They made about 13 of these  for racing, based on the Riley 9 engine that was used in some regular saloons and tourers, that is drop-head cars in England. They were quite popular at the time in the 1930s,” Virr said.

“They were fairly fast for their size. They’re only 1,100cc but even the everyday saloon  will do 60 and 70 miles an hour because it’s a twin cam engine and they have a spherical combustion chamber. That little race car there I’ve had that up to 100 miles an hour at Thompson raceway.”

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Another eye-catching car was the rare 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 owned by Rich Raskin, also from Southport.

“This is the last hand-built car that they made. This model. After that, Mercedes went to full automation. But it’s actually a modern car. It’s a ’71 but it’s got Bosch electronic fuel injection. It’s an automatic transmission. Power disc brakes all around. Air conditioning. Power windows. And a very drivable vehicle,” Raskin said.

“They didn’t make very many. In ’71, they made 1,200 cars, 300 of which were convertibles, so it’s a limited production vehicle and it was the most expensive car at the time. It was more expensive than a Cadillac Eldorado, more expensive than a Lincoln Continental. It was $11,000 brand new, which was a lot of money back in ’71 for a car.”

It was old, old models, though, that made the show stand out – models not often seen at other car shows, and plans are already in the works for a bigger show in 2027.