Ventura – The regular car club in
Antique Adventures had another great show on Sunday 27th November as the event featured lots of unique cars, collectors talking about Christmas and lots of great camaraderie which is indicative of local clubs. Christmas is approaching and car owners have made sure their classics are ready.
Tom Berger of Pharaos Car Club had his custom-built 1937 Ford Slant Back looking good and noted that he wasn’t looking for anything in particular this Christmas.
“The best part of this year is hanging out with the boys,” he said of his Sunday mornings. “You won’t see them if you don’t come here.”
He said pharaohs are slow in the area, but some new members have joined.
“These people have been in clubs all their lives and they don’t want to join other clubs,” he said.
Louie Salgado brought his 1935 Ford Roadster with a pull-up seat.
“It is not finished; I’m still working on it,” he said. “I have to upholster and I just painted it. This is a start.”
Louie said the car was his dad’s and he started building it in 1977.
“He did all the work in his backyard in Santa Barbara,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot. I sent it to Hawaii and the shipper punctured it. I started to fix it again.
He said the car reminded him of his father, who died in 1987.
“He spent three years building this thing in his backyard,” Salgado said. “Every time I visited him, there he was, working on his cars. He had five different cars. When he died, my mother started selling them. I said you won’t sell this one and I took it.
Philip (The Tank) Shay said that whenever a car is sent through the family, the son or daughter likes to keep it until they die.
“I have ten cars and my wife has been gone for 16.5 years,” he said. “She drove all but one. In her memory I keep everyone. I only have two older cars, a Lincoln and a 280 Z, and I don’t show my cars. I brought them here once. They are in Santa Paula in my warehouse.
C. Darryl Struth of Ventura Hot Rodders has been in cars all his life, hosted British car shows and spent his career working for Ford. He brought his 1954 F100 to the show.
Strutt likes Berger’s 1937 Ford Slant Back.
“This is metal, the real deal,” Strutt said.
Struts said his truck has a 289, but a 289 was produced.
“It has a Mustang 90 AOD automatic transmission,” he said. I’ve had four or five F100s and I’ve worked for Ford for 30 years.”
He has a Chevy bumper sticker on his truck that says, “on a quiet night you can hear the Chevy rust.”
“I was a fleet manager at Ford,” he said. “I’ve made offers for college police departments and municipalities.”
He said customers will buy the lowest bid.
“The Hueneme Police Department trusted me and sent me an offer,” he said. “I gave them a good deal before and I knew they could come in and say if they wanted it and I’d build it for them.”
Strutts said his experience at the British Car Show spans 30 years.
“My buddy and I ran them until we turned it over to the Car Club,” he said. “I was with the Central Coast British Car Club for 30 years. I’m still the vice president of Motor Monarchs.”
He’s been a car guy for a long time.
“I have a bedroom full of toy cars,” he said. “I have the entire Chevron car collection that I want to get rid of.”
Strutt said he was in the car show at Ventura High School and was called the Brown Bag.
“We changed to the Ventura High School Alumni Get Together,” he said. “It disappeared when people got old.”
He said the Ventura Hot Rodders Men’s Breakfast is at 8 a.m. on the third Thursday of the month at Denny’s, 4095 Telegraph Road.
Antique Adventures is located at 6587 Ventura Blvd Ventura.
