We’re loading up the van and making tracks for Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for this weekend’s Carlisle Import & Performance Nationals. We expect to be in our usual booth spot—head to B44 and you should see us.
Five reasons to see us:
1: We’re lonely and appreciate the company.
2: Meet the magazine staff, including Tim, Tom and Miles.
3: A Triumph TR3, formerly campaigned by the Group 44 racing team, will be in our booth.
4: Two words: Garage Sale. We’ll have a second booth full of parts fresh from the Grassroots Motorsports shop. Please, don’t make us carry this stuff home.
5: Subscription deals galore.
I'll be there with the Spitfire crew (what's left of the North American Spitfire Squadron club) although I'm still on the fence if I'll actually drive the Spitfire or wuss out and take the MINI. It'll depend on the weather for the drive out there on Thursday.
They really need to stop scheduling this at the same time as Hyperfest & UTCC. Looks like FFR is going to skip it again this year along with a few other kit manufacturers. FFR will be there for All Ford Nationals though but that's less interesting to me.
Too bad the weather looks rainy this weekend
Yeah weather doesn't look so good, but I'm only a couple minutes from the fairgrounds so if it clears up for a while I might head over with the kids. They have been asking to take their wagon to the car show everyday for the past couple weeks, don't understand that they only happen every other weekend or so haha.
In reply to The0retical :
Yeah, when it became the "Import and Performance" show and not the "Import and Kit Car" show, the kit vendor attendance dropped dramatically. Although a number of kit cars still attend the show field, I'll miss seeing the vendors.
There were a couple of years there when it was "Performance and Style." Those were great shows, I bet.
In reply to camaroz1985 :
No kidding, another Carlisle resident on the forum?
Well... 2018 will likely go down as a rough year for this event. I'm sure the iffy and generally wet weather played a part, but attendance was down. While there was a good showing of Swedish cars (pretty much all modern examples), we guessed there may have been a couple of dozen British cars on the field - and that included new MINI's. It was sparse. Likewise, the vendor attendance was really soft. I'd be curious to find out how many vendors registered and then didn't bother to go.
This year, I happened to get my tax refund the Monday prior, so with some (somewhat) unexpected extra cash, I arrived ready to buy. And found very little of interest. A GT6 transmission that looked really nice, but I didn't really need - and especially when the asking price was more than 2x what I felt it was worth. A set of 6 magnesium Minilites for a Spitfire that looked really cool - but again, not something I need for the asking price. So in the end, I bought some foam kneeling pads and a handful of diecast cars.
Personally, as I was driving out on Thursday, I wimped out and drove my 2006 MINI instead of one of the Triumphs. I'm fairly glad I did since all 4 days were somewhat miserable weather-wise. My ex- drove her MINI as well, since her Spitfire is even less weather resistant than my hard-top equipped car.
Still... we had a good time hanging out with friends and I'm sure we'll go again next year. But I do wish the "Performance & Style" group could go away. By around 5:30 Sat evening the crowd was already starting to get rowdy and cops had arrived. We had a dinner reservation and made an exit before finding out what would happen. Something about some guy getting belligerent about not being able to integrate a "baby gender reveal" (seriously - I didn't know this was a "thing") into the burn-out competition... Add a lot of alcohol and well... we decided to leave before finding out if two Carlisle policemen would be enough.
I've gone to this show 3 or 4 times over the years and have seen the attendance wain. I even went to one of the "Performance and Style " shows when it was a separate deal. I used to like the import flea market for finding older bits and bobs, but it dropped off ,too. Where else does one go for an import oriented show/flea market if this one continues down hill?
Attendance by modern import vendors was essentially nil. There was a parts vendor that had a small display at the Saab tent (the Saab group by far has the largest attendance at the show, followed by the various Volvo groups collectively).
How bad was it for LBCs this year? I seriously think there were more French cars on the show field than Brits this year.
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