Car show the main feature during resort’s convention
More than 400 antique and classic cars were featured in a national car show at Seven Springs Resort near Champion. Ray Matthews of Mount Independence, an avid car collector and restorer, is a member of the Allegheny Rockets Chapter of the Oldsmobile Club of America (OCA), which hosted the 2009 OCA national car show on July 15-19. Matthews, who also judged some of the entries, has won dozens of trophies for vehicles he has restored over the past two decades.
The major event during the convention was the car show and judging.
Matthews said OCA members had registered more than 400 vehicles for the show.
“No other domestic automobile builder can duplicate the long and glorious trail blazed by Oldsmobile. It spans the curious hand-built wooden carriage, which chugged to life in 1897 to the last 2004 Alero that left the Lansing, Michigan plant on April 29, 2004. In keeping with this long heritage no other club can offer the broad coverage of the Oldsmobile Club of America, Inc. We cover each of the Olds models built and anyone interested in this fine automotive nameplate can join. You don’t even have to own an Oldsmobile,” according to OCA information.
Tours of the Flight 93 Memorial and Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s showplace, were scheduled during the convention, as well as an oldies dance featuring William Dell and the Wee Jams, during the event, which was open free to the public.
Hosting the OCA was an honor, he added, a group that claims more than 6,500 members. It was formed in 1971, Matthews said, and covers all phases of the car-collecting hobby.
“If it’s antique, special interest or performance Oldsmobile related, you’ll find it under the OCA banner,” according to the group’s Web site.
“It has members all over the United States. We had people coming to the convention from California, Texas, Pennsylvania and even Newfoundland,” Matthews said.
The Allegheny Rockets, he added, formed in 2001, has about 85 members from the Pittsburgh area.