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July 2009 Volume 44 Number 7

Orphan Car Tour with

The Packards that were driven

AACA's Chesapeake Region

on Saturday were:

'40 Convertible - Walt and Debbie

Breithaupt

by Keith Vail and Jon Battle

'47 Clipper Sedan - James and

Karen Showers

Dubbed by organizers as "The Catoctin Caper," the 20th

'49 Super Deluxe - Dale Mease &

Orphan Car Tour was held June 6 and 7, 2009. This event is open

Miles White (navigator)

to cars that are at least 25 years old and are "orphans" -- defined

'50 Super 8 Deluxe - Craig Moor

as cars produced by now-defunct manufacturers or by the discon-

'53 Mayfair - Don and Ashley

tinued divisions of existing companies. Examples of those in the

Reedy

first category are Packard and Hudson and examples of those in the

'54 Convertible - Mel and Lee

second group are Oldsmobile and Plymouth. Cars with discontin-

Clow (won 3rd Place in the

ued nameplates, such as Thunderbird and Roadmaster, may also be

"most observant" contest)

considered orphans, judging from this year's lineup of entries. Or

'54 Pacific - Keith Vail

they may simply have been among the few non-orphans that were

'54 Cavalier - George, Justin and

allowed to join the fun, such as a 1936 Ford. Several participants did

Ben Reede

joke that a Cadillac owner was jumping the gun on General Motors'

'56 Caribbean Convertible -

possible demise by entering his 1959 Sedan de Ville.

George and Bee Hamlin

Forty-four orphans (and related ilk) toured through the coun-

'56 Executive - Bill and Susan

tryside in search of answers to such probing questions as "Where

Johnson ("Staff Car")

do blackbirds toast marshmallows and tell ghost stories?" On the

first part of our tour, we stopped at Fort Ritchie, Pen Mar Park, an

antique car sales operation, and the Waynesboro Model Rail Club.

If you have any interest in railroad modeling, you MUST go to

Waynesboro. Next we visited what was for many the highlight of

the day -- The Twin Kiss ice cream shop. About 50 miles of scenic

back roads were covered on the first day, which culminated with a

dinner buffet in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. We teamed up this

year with the Chesapeake Region

of the Antique Automobile Club

of America (AACA) to make the

escapade a two-day affair. The

road trip began and ended at the

parking lot of the 80-year-old

Cozy Restaurant in Thurmont,

Maryland -- not far from Camp

David, the presidential retreat in

the Catoctin Mountains.

Those taking part on the

tour's second day covered an ad-

ditional 60 miles, with America's

oldest antique car museum -- the

William E. Swigart Jr. Automo-

bile Museum in Huntingdon, PA

-- as the highlight of the itinerary.