Mopars Close Meadowbrook
Words: Roger Meiners
Click photos to enlarge.
Photos: Mark Rozman
The 2010 edition of the JEGS Allstars race, which was the 26th annual, featured a total of 80 drivers competing in 10 different eliminator categories. The Mopar® line-up featured Dustan Lowell, Jon Irving and Brad Haugaard in Stock Eliminator; Frank Aragona Jr. in Competition Eliminator, Frank Zeffiro in Top Dragster, Josh Vettel in Top Sportsman and Chuck Rose in Super Gas.
The venerable Meadowbrook Concours—renamed the Concours d’Élégance of America this year—ended after 31 years on the grounds around Matilda Dodge Wilson’s Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, Mich. The show is moving across town to the Inn at St. John’s, Plymouth, Mich., a Detroit suburb with a very appropriate name for Mopar enthusiasts. The large facility is the site of a former Catholic seminary that has turned into a beautiful setting for a car show, complete with stately old brick buildings, a new 118-room hotel and 27-hole golf course—and one of the biggest golf shops around.
Several famous 1965 Dodge and Plymouth altered-wheelbase (AWB) Factory Experimental drag cars were featured among similar cars from Ford and Chevrolet at Meadowbrook. A couple of Chrysler Airflows were there, too—one of the first made and one of the last. Also in attendance was Mr. Road Runner himself, Jack Smith, who was the program manager for the Plymouth car line when he led the creation of the 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, a breakthrough in muscle car affordability.
Photographer Mark Rozman, himself a passionate Mopar enthusiast, said, “Jack stopped by to say ‘Hi’ to the guys who had Road Runners at the show. Nice of him to do that. He is still very active and as sharp as a pistol. He comes to every one of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum cruise nights to mingle and talk.”
The Mopar AWB cars included the late Dick Landy’s Dodge Coronet, freshly-restored in Chrysler employee “HEMI®” Ed Strzelecki’s garage. The rarely-seen Golden Commandos Plymouth was on display with its gold-leaf lettering from the days the group of Plymouth employees and their cohorts raced it. Bud Faubel’s Honker Dodge Coronet, owned by Pennsylvanians Jim and Cyndy Kramer. According to Jim Kramer, only three of these Dodge A/FX cars still exist.
A fourth car, the Dodge Coronet raced by Dave Strickler, spent seven years on display at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Mich. while owned by Steve Atwell. It is now in the hands of Nick Smith, who also owns the Landy car mentioned above.
The inaugural Concours d’Élégance of America at Plymouth is scheduled for the weekend of July 29–31, 2011. Our coverage might be titled “Mopars at Plymouth” or something clever like that.
