Fred Stokes Ranch Car Show

Last weekend, the Redwood Empire Classic Chevy Club in Santa Rosa sponsored a car show up at Fred Stokes Ranch. Any car built prior to 1970 was eligible for entry into the show and the cost was $5 per person to walk in or $10 per car to drive in. Since, it was just as cheap to ride right through the front gate and park in the middle of the show than it was to park miles away and hike to the event, my friend Matt and I went along with my father and sister Rose and we went up in a pair of Dad's 1930's vintage International pickups. As we rolled up, it was pretty clear we were in the right place:


Fred Stokes' ranch is an interesting showpiece in itself. This is the second time I've been up there, but I didn't have my camera last time. Here's a shot of the entrance to his workshop:
The left-hand end of the building houses what is likely the largest collection of unopened, antique oil cans in the world. Inside the rest of the building there's several automotive works in progress and enough frame and body parts to make half a dozen more.

The rest of the ranch has all sorts of neat features planted all around, including this antique, pre-fabricated filling station:


So that was the venue, now more about the cars. There was a wide variet of perfect restorations, vintage hotrods, gassers, and fascinatingly modified rat rods. So without further ado, here's a handful of pics of really shiny cars:

This Chevy pickup was parked right inside the entrance. My mother drives around town in a very similar truck most days:

I'm not sure why this one caught my eye, but it's got lots of louvres:

Next to it was this gorgeous Chevrolet Sedan Delivery:

Among the shiny cars was this nice, red Mustang:

And this Oldsmobile:

On the subject of Oldsmobiles, someone showed up with a stretched limousine version:

Speaking of modified:

I'm not sure why, but for some reason this Hudson really grabbed me:

There was also this nice, black Ford pickup:

With all sorts of shiny:

But as Ford pickups go, I still prefer the 1949-1951 versions:

I really liked the yellow one:

I got another look at it as it was leaving:

There were some fun rat rods there too:

I really liked this super-tacky one:

But my favorite from the whole show was this monstrosity:


I even liked the details:


Those were the best of the pics I took, but here's a slideshow from photobucket user "Vet65te":

Not a bad show.