-by Andy Lindberg – Photos by John Engstrom-
The poker run/tour was a grand touring event as opposed to a sports car sprint. Gentle, sweeping curves rather than precipitous cut backs. Jaguar drivers should have loved it; Bugeye and Lotus drivers less so. The scenery was great — pines, and rivers right up to the road with only an occasional appearance of human detirus. We saw a wolf cross the road but no deer attacked us.
Fish. Boy are the fish good up north. We had them at the Friday night fish fry and several other times. Apparently there are some people that won’t eat fish. And some of these people even drive cars from England, where fish & chips are more popular than escargot in France, spaghetti in Italy, or quarter pounders in the states.
The only rain we had was Saturday morning, just before the car show. That allowed folks to towel off their cars before people came to judge whether the cars agreed with whatever criteria they had for how it should have been done. (Some people noticed that the registration sheet on my Mazda’s windshield said it was 1969 SAAB. I told them if they just washed it the SAAB would appear.)
As usual the Canadians were a hoot. And they know that cars were made to be driven not to be trailered from one car show to the next concours.
None of the cars seemed to have aged since I saw them last in 2019. Some of us, however, did show the ravages of time. And there was more discussion of knee replacements than engine transplants.
As always, the great thing about Rendezvous was not how many Triumphs or MGs there were, but the variety of vehicles that appeared. Sunbeam Tiger, Jensen Healeys and an Interceptor, Citroëns, Loti. Unfortunately I was again disappointed in the absence of Italian cars. And despite two SAABistas attempting to make an appearance, the only Swedish car at the show was a beautiful Volvo P1800 from North Dakota.
Hey, can you believe this event was put together by first-timers? Not only had the InterMarque never hosted a Rendezvous before, but two of its kingpins (John Engstrom and Todd Bjerkness) had never even been to a Rendezvous before. Wowzer!
RENDEZVOUS UPDATES FROM CHAIR JOHN ENGSTROM:
At the car show, the Boys and Girls club got $883.00 from the votes for the cars. Very generous of the people at the show to spend this much voting at the show. The Sunbeam Tiger was the clear winner with 84 votes.
We had a total of 80 registrations for the event.
All. in all, the Hotel was very co-operative with us in putting on the event. No problems with them at all and they were always at the ready if changes had to be made.
Thanks to our sponsors for helping to make this event possible. GOLD SPONSOR: MORRIES AUTO GROUP and our two SILVER SPONSORS: MOSS MOTORS and HEACOCK CLASSIC CAR INSURANCE.
The 2023 Rendezvous will take place in Ashland, Wisconsin and will be hosted by the Triumph club.
Now it’s time to pay the bills……