SEVILLE SQUARE AACA SHOW

PBCA members turned out in force for the September 21st Seville Square AACA Show in Pensacola. Moving the show from mid-August to September has worked out fine for two years. Perfect weather under the huge Live Oak trees with a nice breeze off the Gulf. A whole lot cooler and we have managed to dodge hurricanes the past two years.

We had 12 cars show up for the AACA points judging show and the results were as follows:

A New British Car Show Classification System
by Bill Silhan

Editors Note: This is sixth in a series of articles by PBCA members:

I have Participated in a lot of British Car Shows and have noticed that almost every show organizes the car classes different manner, probably having to do with the most popular types of cars in that club or region. It seems as if, almost always, some car owner is dismayed at the class his car was placed in and feels that he was judged unfairly because of it, and often rightfully so. In my observations, there seems little logic or consistency to the way car classes are determined in British Car Shows. i.e. From a personal perspective, why is my Triumph 2000 always in the Empire (miscellaneous) class and not parked with the other Triumphs? Or, why Austin Healey Sprites and MG Migets in the same class when they are different Marques? (I do know the answer to that one.) Why are TR4's and TR6's (very similar) almost always different classes but Jaguar XJS's are often lumped in with other kinds of unlike Jags, sedans or E-types? These unnatural and unfair combinations, which directly effect judging and awards, are motivated by the fact that a British Car Classification System that acknowledges all marques and like models would be a very large and cumbersome system with many, many classes. The British, God bless them, manufactured a great many distinctly different interesting automobiles. That's why we like to collect, restore, and drive them.

I would like to propose a revolutionary new way to determine classes at British Car Shows inspired from my other life as an artist. Lets abandon the traditional methodology of marques and models, and do it by COLOR! i.e. Best Red Car. Class organization would be much simpler and more clearly defined. It would also adapt to different size shows more easily. If you are a small organization and can't afford to too many trophies, you could stick with the primary colors: Red, Blue, Yellow. Larger clubs could host shows which embrace the primary and secondary colors: Green, Orange, and Violet. And Major shows could expand their classes to include the teriary colors: Blue/Green, Yellow/Green, Yellow/Orange, Red/Orange, Red/Violet, and Blue/Violet. Of course, all shows would have to have Black/Gray (absence of color), White/Cream (all colors reflected), Classes.

As presently done, classes could still be combined or eliminated if there were not three cars of a similar hue (color). i.e. If only one Red/violet Rolls Royce registered it would be combined with the color class next to it on the color wheel: Violet or Red. Cars could be arranged within classes from the shades (darker values) to tints (lighter values). i.e. the Red class would start with Maroon Mini Moke and end with pink MGTC. This would make for a very aesthetic presentation make dividing classes easy, if necessary. i.e. If the (resale) Red class got too large, as often happens in the MGB class at traditional shows, the Red Class could be divided at fire engine, medium value, red Triumph, into a Dark Red and Light Red classes. Two tone cars could be handled a couple of different ways. You could determine which color there was more of on the Healey Blue and White Austin Healey 3000 and place it in that class: Blue or White. This could be easily accomplished in square inches with a tape measure and a hand held computer or a simpler solution would be to just create a Two Tone Class. Metallics could be handled in a similar fashion, put the gold Morgan in the Yellow Class or create a Metallics (silver, gold, copper, bronze, stainless De Lorean's) Class.

No system is perfect, there would still probably be some subjective Color Class decisions that would have to be made by someone. i.e. Does the turquoise XK140 Jaguar belong in the Blue or Green Class? These kinds of subtle subjective hue decisions could be easily determined by an artist. All communities, big or small, have a few starving artists which could be hired for next to nothing (take my word for it) to make the judgement calls. Or If you wanted to be even more objective and eliminate all chance of error on color class, the show organizers could rent or borrow a computer analyzer from your local automotive paint supply store and determine the dominate hue by percentages of pigment. I.e. does the turquoise Jag have a higher percentage of Blue or Green pigment in its paint? The whole show could be arranged according to the color spectrum (Rainbow) which would make for a extremely attractive presentation to the general public and perhaps also generate desirable publicity. Another advantage of this system also immediately accommodates new and evolving marques: Jaguar/Ford, Bently/BMW, Mini/BMW, Rolls Royce/Volkswagen, Aston Martin/General Motors.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of this British Car show classification system by color is that if you don't like the class you are in (too many nice British Racing Green cars in you area), All you have to do make a quick trip down to your local Fact-O-Bake, and next year you will be in a judged in a different class, of your choosing! Think about it.

Thanks for your indulgence - Bill Silhan