December 2023 | Volume 180

This year’s Annual Convention is gearing up to be one of the best ones we’ve ever had, and you do not want to miss it! Registrations are flowing into AACA National Headquarters at a steady pace and the hotel rooms are being booked even faster. If you are still debating on whether or not you want to go to the convention, you need to make a decision ASAP because we do not want you to have any regrets later.

Highlights for the 2024 convention include:



• Pre-Convention Excursion to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: On Thursday, February 8, we have planned a trip to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s annex located at Washington Dulles International Airport. The first 200 attendees to register for this activity will be treated to a wonderful luncheon overlooking the restoration shop and the Space Shuttle Discovery, plus guided tours afterwards. Free bus transportation to the museum will be available to all attendees from the hotel from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., so even if you don’t get a seat at the luncheon, you can still go and enjoy the museum (free entry and onsite food options available).
• Pizza Party Welcome Reception: Your AACA Board of Directors will be hosting the Thursday evening event to officially open the convention. Enjoy some good pizza, fun conversations and meet your Board members in a relaxed atmosphere. Everyone is invited, but you must pre-register to attend.
• Luncheon hosted by AACA’s First Lady: There will be no seminars or activities scheduled during this Friday luncheon, so that everyone may join us for a wonderful Italian buffet and get a lesson in “Horse Power” from AACA First Lady Marcia Trusty and some of her friends. Everyone is invited, but you must pre-register to attend.
• Friday Evening Dinner Buffet: This dinner is a tradition during the convention and hosted by our AACA Regions and Chapters. This is our time to celebrate and honor all of our amazing Regions and Chapters for everything they do locally to promote this great hobby but also for everything they do to support and raise up this club. Everyone is invited, but you must pre-register to attend.
• Casino Night: Friday evening is for FUN! One of the ballrooms at the hotel will be transformed into our very own casino complete with all kinds of table games and even NASCAR-style racing – all of which will be played with “funny money.” At the end of the evening, players will be able to use their remaining “funny money” to win some awesome prizes including a lifetime AACA membership. Everyone is invited to attend this event, but you must pre-register to be a player at the casino night.
• National Awards Banquet: Also referred to as the “Oscars of the Antique Automobile World,” this is the grand finale of the convention. This is the evening when we honor all of our 2023 National Award winners and shine the brightest spotlight on this hobby and our dedicated members. Everyone is invited, but you must pre-register to attend.
• Educational Seminars: The complete seminar schedule will be available very soon – we are just working on some final touches. To get you excited, here are just a few of the seminars planned for convention… Restoration Q & A, The Automobile in Art, The Incurable Collector, Everything Prewar Tires, Intro to the AACA Library, Why Does Medicare Cover AACA Membership?, How to Get Your Car Published in Antique Automobile Magazine, Carburetor Basics 102, and many more!

For more information and details, click here for the convention brochure.

To download a registration form, click here.

If you have any questions or issues, please call

AACA National Headquarters at 717-534-1910.

If you decide at the last minute that you would like to attend the convention for one or both of the days, we will gladly take onsite registrations. It only costs $45 to attend and enjoy the seminars, trade show and camaraderie! If you register onsite, you will NOT be able to attend any of the meal functions because those counts must be given to the hotel ahead of time.

Don’t forget to book your hotel room!

Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles

14750 Conference Center Drive

Chantilly, VA 20151

Less than 10 miles from the Washington Dulles International Airport

Room Rates: $129 per night; $149 per night includes breakfast for one person; $169 per night includes breakfast for two people

Reservation Link: https://book.passkey.com/e/50584547

Reservation Phone: (800) 266-9432 (mention Antique Automobile Club of America)

Reservation Deadline: January 16, 2024

Get your trade show booth now!

The trade show is starting to fill up, but there are still plenty of booths available. If you have a business that AACA members should know about, then you should have a trade show booth. Do you use a service or have a friend who owns a company that AACA members should be using, a trade show booth is the answer. At only $200, this is the most cost-effective target marketing you could ever do!

Click here for more information about the benefits of being a trade show vendor at the convention and a registration form.

Your AACA membership runs on a calendar year

from January 1 through December 31.

If you have already renewed your membership for 2024, thank you!!

If you have not renewed your membership yet, please take a few minutes to do it now.

A renewal form was included with your November/December issue of Antique Automobile magazine. Simply fill out the form and send it back to the office with a check or credit card information.

You can also use our new and improved online renewal on our website. Renewing online is quick and easy! Just log in with your membership number and PIN, review the information currently listed on your membership record and make changes if necessary. Review your information one more time and choose your payment type. Payment options include Visa, MasterCard, Discover or PayPal. Your payment will automatically record to your membership record, and you will receive an email confirmation.

Your membership number and PIN can be found on your membership card. You can also call National Headquarters at 717-534-1910 or email kwhite@aaca.org to get your numbers. Please DON’T try to pay your dues by using the JOIN AACA tab. This WILL NOT renew your membership – instead, it will create a new one.

REMINDER: Your 2024 membership dues MUST be paid before you can receive registration information for any 2024 National Shows or Tours, including the Annual Convention.

My love for this hobby started during my childhood. My grandfather would always bring my brother and I a Matchbox car when he visited. We later moved on to miles of Hot Wheels orange track in my parent’s basement. In my teenage years, I started to assemble model cars. My grandfather always drove Chevrolet full size cars. I collected as many different years of Chevrolet 1/24 scale models as I could find in the 1970s. The 1973 George Lucas film, American Graffiti, was influential in my choice of the 1958 Chevrolet Impala as my favorite car. In high school, I took Automotive Technology in the afternoon at our local vocational school, and this gave me the skills to do most of my own work on cars. Then, my toys just got bigger.

My brother, a friend

and I playing with Matchbox cars about 1,000 years ago.

If I knew what these little cars would cost now, I never would

have played with

them outside!

After high school, I built a modified 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop and joined my first official car club – the Classic Chevy Club. Soon after I joined two newly formed clubs that included the ‘58 to ‘64 Chevrolets – the Late Great Chevy Club and the National Impala Association. I then attended a few of their annual conventions that were close to home. I am still a member of the National Impala Association today.

Living in the Central Pennsylvania area, I am a 25-minute drive from the Carlisle Events flea market and AACA Fall Meet at Hershey. I was aware of the AACA, but my cars were either not quite 25 years old or modified when I started going to shows. I always thought a car needed spokes to be a real antique. Many years later, a friend of mine convinced me to join the National AACA and the Hershey Region AACA. I joined National in 2003 and got on the waiting list for the Hershey Region.

My taste in cars changed and I found I was more interested in cars in their original condition, which aligned with the AACA. For many years, my wife and I worked in the show field souvenir tent during the Fall Meet at Hershey. Being part of the Hershey Region, I found the experience was as much the relationships with fellow members as it was about the cars. In 2012, I finished restoring a 1958 Chevrolet Impala I had started working on in 1997. It took a few Fall Meets and some borrowed tires from another member to get my Senior award.

Our hobby faces many challenges when trying to inspire interest in the younger generations. Today many are occupied with technology (video games, phones, etc.), trying to make ends meet, and just have no interest in preserving items from the past. With that said, technology and social media is here to stay. The National AACA has made a great step forward in offering more online services to its current and prospective members. The Hershey Region will, also, be moving our newsletter and other correspondence online in 2024.

The future of our hobby is dependent on the interest of the next generations. I believe accommodating the youth with more inclusivity and respect for their interests while adhering to our core mission of preserving automotive history can be a win win for all. Not everyone in this hobby is going to start out with a six-figure restored award-winning marvel. Each of us have different reasons for our choice of an antique car.

Promoting the camaraderie and relationships with other likeminded people that have the same passion for cars is one of the best reasons to join the AACA. It can be very intimidating to prospective new members looking at the AACA from the outside. Invite them to your meetings and activities. Letting the prospective new members join in your club events relieves some of their fear of the unknown. When attending our region events, the cars do not need to meet any judging guidelines. There is always time to work towards building a car to compete in an AACA Nationals show. Some of the Hershey Region members do not even have an antique car, however, still attend most of the club’s events. So why wait, join us and have fun with our club now. 

Happy Holidays from the AACA Library & Research Center!

Interested in becoming a volunteer with the AACA Library?

Contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Matthew Hocker,

at mhocker@aaca.org or 717-534-2082.

Interested in doing research with the AACA Library?

More information is available on our website.

Visit AACA Library or contact our Reference Librarian, Amoi Goldman,

at agoldman@aaca.org or 717-534-2082.

Visit our Booth at Black Swan Antiquities

I read and enjoy my AACA and Turning Wheels magazines. These are great publications with lots of nice stories and information. I especially like the stories about people that do their own repair/restoration work, and then DRIVE the cars! The other items I like are the letters from other members and want ads.

But I must address some items that have been bugging me. This is the constant onslaught against things like carburetors, point ignition, generators, 6-volt systems, brakes, suspension, etc. I bought my first car at age 12 in 1965; a 1961 Studebaker Lark Regal 8 convertible, which I still have. I have bought and sold hundreds of cars through the years, and currently I have about 38 vehicles – from an implement delivery truck to farm tractors and all sorts of cars. I have been collecting my entire life; besides the first car I bought, I still have cars I bought in the 1970s. My cars do not ride on trailers; I try not to buy ones that need a trailer ride home even. I drive them every day possible, even in the winter in North Dakota. What I am trying to say is that these cars do drive and ride nice and are dependable just the way the factory made them, IF properly maintained. Yes, they don’t have the “feel” of a new car, but that’s not the point most of us want from an old car.

1961 Studebaker Hawk in Ypsilanti Mi

by Hudson Museum during the SDC and

AACA shows in 2017. Only trouble I had on that trip was hitting a deer in Indiana, nipped his nose and got blood on the headlight door and chipped the paint a little bit from the headlight door moving.

If the body leans on a corner, go through the corner slower. You can lock up the wheels on a drum brake car if you desire; the stopping power is then dependent upon the quality of the rubber. Once the wheels are locked and the tire is sliding, does it really matter if a drum or a disc brake did that?? This is not, of course, including anti-lock brake systems. As for generator vs alternator… yes, a generator does not charge at an idle, but I don’t think a lot of people let their cars idle for prolonged periods of time with the headlights, heater, wipers, etc., running anyway. A generator will do its job very well while the car is being driven, if it is in good working order. As for changing from 6 volt to 12 or going to an 8-volt battery, these are all just bandages to cover up other very repairable problems. Is the entire electrical system up to par? (i.e., good quality cables (6-volt cars require at least “0” or “00” size battery cables; whereas 12 volt can get by with “4” or even “6” gauge cables), good grounds, starter/generator bearings, bushings and brushes up to par, etc.) As an example, when I bought my last 1949 Hudson Commodore 8 a couple years ago, you could almost count the teeth on the flywheel when you cranked it over. Improving ground connections, new correct cables, new battery, rebuild of the starter, etc., resulted in the car now spinning over at a rate commensurate to a 12-volt car.

As for fuel, there are so many complaints about our new fuel. Yes, it is not the best, but if anyone has any idea of the quality of fuel even up through the early 1960s, they would probably be glad we have the fuel we have today. The fuel that was used in the early 1900s almost couldn’t be rated as gasoline by today’s standards, but the cars did run on it. I have never used any sort of fuel stabilizer in any of my cars over the last 50 years, and I have been using ethanol laced fuel ever since it came out – mostly to see if it was as bad as everyone says. I have not had any more fuel issues than I had in the 1960s through the late 1980s before I went to ethanol fuel. Maybe I just have plain old luck, but I have not had any carburetors disintegrate from it. One thing I do though is keep the fuel tanks as full as humanly possible at all times on all cars. Remember, the dead air space above the gas will enhance the probability of moisture and air contacting the gas, which are the reasons gas goes bad. Recently, I started up a 1963 Studebaker Lark 6 that I had not been driven since around 2002. Being that the gas was almost 20 years old, I guess even I was a little surprised when it started right up and ran very well on the gas in the tank (ethanol based)!!!

As for engine oil, I use 10w30 or 15w40 oil year-round in all cars, plus I add a lubricity enhancer. I used to use Bardahl and then Wynn’s Friction Proofing, but those brands have disappeared from the shelves. I am currently using Justice Brothers engine tune, or ZDDP additives. I have an engine oil lubricity testing machine, where you have a volt and amp meter for the drive motor and weights to add to enhance the pressure between two bearings. Therefore, I can test the lubricity qualities of different brands of engine oils, as well as if or how much the additives help. I was surprised at some of the results; some regular engine oil – such as Holiday brand – actually had more lubricity than some of the full synthetic oils!! I recently spent over $250 on as many different brands of oil as I could for testing. I bought all 10w-30 weights, so all would be equal in that respect. As a side note, my father was a mechanic so ever since I was 5 years old, I have been in the mechanical trade and went to college for auto body and had my own body shop as well as worked for others. So, you can see, my entire life – well, at least the last 64 years of it – has been involved with repair of everything from ground tampers to dirt movers, peddle cars to semi-trucks, both repair and refinishing.

Thanks for letting me vent. I hope some other old car enthusiasts will pick up a few ideas from all this and enjoy their cars more. As a side note, I have a friend that puts Corvette engines in his old cars, so they have all the modern conveniences – including computer control. I keep teasing him that when we are on a road trip and both our cars stall, I will file my points or install an electric fuel pump to drive home; he will have to call a wrecker for his! The thing I am trying to get across is this – you do NOT have to replace a Studebaker (or AMC, Ford, Mopar, etc.) engine with a Chevrolet engine. Yes, the other engines cost more to rebuild, but once it’s running well with good oil pressure it will last you the rest of your life and then some.

The Atlantic Ocean 1963 Studebaker Hawk while in Woodstock, NY.

The Pacific Ocean 1963 Studebaker Cruiser

but taken about 18 years later

in Minot at our Museum.

The 1974 AMC Gremlin and 1977 AMC Pacer on our way home from southern California to North Dakota after I bought them in California, and we drove them home.

We are always looking to feature articles from AACA members in Speedster. We'd love to share your personal accounts of tours and shows you have attended, restoration projects, unique vehicle stories and history, and any other stories you think other AACA members would enjoy hearing about.

Stories should average about 500 words or less. And we love photos, so make sure to include some! Please send your photos and stories to Stacy Zimmerman at szimmerman@aaca.org. 

Touring Cajun Country

March 17-23, 2024

Founders Tour

Lafayette, LA

Registration: Open Now!

Click here for brochure

When people think of Louisiana, this is the image that comes to mind: miles of bayou, sawdust-strewn shacks, a unique take on French and lots of good food. Welcome to Cajun Country, also called Acadiana for the French settlers exiled from L’Acadie (now Nova Scotia, Canada) by the British in 1755. Cajuns are the largest French-speaking minority in the USA, and while you may not hear French spoken at the grocery store, it’s still present in radio shows, church services and the sing-song lilt of local English accents.

Observers have repeatedly remarked upon two distinct ethnic qualities in a very positive light, namely: family ties and hospitality. Travelers in the south have commented on the friendliness with which the Cajun people welcomed guests and strangers into their homes, and also their willingness to share whatever they had, even if it was just a little. Inspired not by charity, but more by hospitality (which is an inherited trait), these people opened the doors to their homes to all and sundry that cared to grace their doorsteps. We look forward to having you grace our doorstep and experience all that the Louisiana Region AACA has to offer on the 35th Annual Founder’s Tour!

Hotel Information:

Hilton Garden Inn, 2350 West Congress, Lafayette, La. 70506

Ph: 337-291-1977, Fax 337-237-0400

Room rates from $139 -$159

Tour hosts: Ron & Dianne Sonnier, 337-581-7776, rsonnier@cox.net

This tour is open to historically correct vehicles manufactured between 1932 and 1999.

Click here if you would like to request information about this tour be mailed to you.

REMINDER: Your 2024 AACA membership dues must be paid

prior to registering for any 2024 National shows and tours.

The 2024 car show and tour season will be here before we know it and we are positive that all of you could use some new gear to show off your love and pride for AACA. Earlier this month, we restocked the online AACA store with lots of cool stuff – both old and new. While browsing the website, be sure to check out some of our most popular items…

Hats, Knit Caps & Visors

T-Shirts and Sweatshirts

Nylon & Fleece Jackets

Men’s Polo, Dress & Denim Shirts

Judge Polo & Denim Shirts

License Plates & Frames

Tire Drink Koozies

Coin Purses

Medi-Wallets

AACA Signs

Fleece Blankets

Can't find something in the online store? You can always call AACA Headquarters to place your order as well (717-534-1910, M-F 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.).

We have received another update from the book publisher, PCI, confirming that the books are in fact printed. We have now been told that when the printer reopens the first week in January, our book shipment is one of the top projects on their list.

We would like to again thank all of our members who took part in this project and apologize sincerely for all of the issues and delays with the printed books. We are just as upset as you are and never would have begun this project if we had any inkling that problems like this would happen. We will be pressing very hard with PCI to make their printer perform as expected! Remember, your stories will also be housed in the AACA Oral History Center sponsored by John & Lynn Heimerl at National Headquarters.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact PCI at 1-800-982-1590 or customerservice@publishingconcepts.com. 

Limited Inventory of 2024 AACA Calendars Available – Order Today!

Limited Inventory of 2024 AACA Holiday Cards Available – Order Today!

The cards come in packs of 12 and include envelopes. Each pack is only $12 (plus shipping). You can also purchase them in the AACA store on our website or call AACA Headquarters to place your order (717-534-1910).

Would your AACA region or chapter like to visit?

What about any of the other car clubs you belong to?

If you are planning a tour or day excursion for a group near the Hershey area, why not include a stop at our building as part of your itinerary?

If you would like to book a tour, please reach out to Amoi Goldman, AACA Reference Librarian & Outreach Coordinator, at 717-534-2082 or agoldman@aaca.org.

Antique Automobile Club of America

AACA.org | 717-534-1910

America’s Premiere Resource for the Collectible Vehicle Community

The Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, is the country's premier resource for the collectible vehicle community. Since its formation in 1935, the Club, through its national office, publications, and membership, aids individuals, museums, libraries, historians and collectors dedicated to the enjoyment and preservation of automotive history.