June 23, 2002 – Lowlands Tour

The Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club was the sponsor for this event with a variety of cars from other clubs attending. This is a multifacetted event: There is an endurance run for speedsters, a tour for other cars fifty years old or older, and it all ends up at the Palo Alto Concours de Elegance.

The tour and speedster run is set up so that the tourists and racers end up at lunch at the same place and approximately the same time. Again, the end of the tour and speedster run is at the same place and ends up at about the same time.

This year the start was at Foothill College in Los Altos, the picnic lunch in the Santa Cruz mountains near the town of Ben Lomond. The weather was perfect and I am not aware of any cars that had mechanical difficulty.

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	A vintage Teddy Bear to go with a vintage car.
	Tour leader's "T Model" at the start at Foothill College.
		It appears that J loves his Model A
	Lots of Fords, as is to be expected. This one had a wonderful interior.
		The first rest stop while out one the road. This is California Highway 9 between Skyline and the turn off to Big Basin State Park.
	You expect to see Marmons and Pierce Arrows at fancy concours, not on tours. But we had this Marmon. A wonderful opera coupe. Apparently I did not get a photo of the Pierce Arrow on the road.
	And somehow I got ahead of the group. Here we are at a vista point on Skyline over looking the south end of the San Francisco Bay waiting for some of the tour cars.
	At the Palo Alto Concours. Here are most of the “Full Classics” that were in attendance: Two Pierce Arrows with a senior Packard in the middle.
	You would have thought it was a big, expensive classic: Good lines, well restored and polished to perfection. A Nash.
	This big incredible car was whisper silent. Just a slight steam kettle whistle. The Doble steam car.
	A general view of the Concours field. Lots of newer stuff that does not interest me as much. There were also muscle cars and hot rods.
	Here are "our" speedsters parked at the Concours.
	And here are the Lowland tour cars parked at the Concours.
		One final speedster. This had almost all of its valve train out for inspection. This Buick engine definitely wanted you to know that it is a overhead valve design.