[By Jim Barnes]

On Saturday June 28th those willing to meet downtown were treated to a unique opportunity to see some truly special cars, and take a stroll thru the historic gaslamp quarter as a bonus. We met at the top level of the Horton Plaza parking garage and from there started our trek towards the San Diego Auto Museum restoration facility located in downtown San Diego. It was a glorious Southern Cal kinda day and with the 18 members and guests who showed up for this excursion we had our own little walking parade. After a pit stop at Panakins for an excellent coffee break and breather we continued on to the old warehouse building for a trip "back in time"...Don Alford, our host and tour guide greeted us and took us inside where numerous old cars lined the walls and open floor areas in various stages of restoration and some in original un-restored condition. Don is a lively gentleman and extremely knowledgeable about the cars that were stored and repaired there, he answered any and all of our questions. Everyone's eyes were pretty big especially when looking at a 1918 Overland touring car in completely original condition or a very rare leather bodied racing Bentley, that's right, a green leather bodied car. Most of the cars were donated to the museum and Don seemed to have a little story to tell about each one. There was a V-12 Lincoln from the early thirties complete with black paint and bud vase, a rare Riley with a dual overhead cam engine from the same era, definitely ahead of its time. A 1903 International Harvester buckboard wagon which most consider the first motorized farm truck, a couple of Jaguars, an XKl40 and 150, a salt flats racing car, numerous motorcycles, more than this author can remember. Soon other volunteers started to show and all were willing to answer questions and converse about the particular car that they were in the process of working on. One gentleman was restoring a giant V-12 motor that had come from an Auburn Boat-tail Roadster, the motor was going to be mounted and displayed at the museum in Balboa park. After a few hours our group was ready to hit the trail and stepped lively to our next stop of the day, the premier classic car show room Affordable VIP Classics located in the gaslamp quarter. The showroom specializes in consignment selling of collector and desirable high end cars and have quite an inventory .There is a showcase at street level and a larger lower level garage where the majority of the cars are kept. A display board with pictures and pricing is used to inform customers of what is downstairs but, due to our large number and lack of enough sales people it was impossible for them to take us on a tour of that area. The amply stocked upper showroom was a treat and provided some hefty ooohs and aaaahs!. Well it was time for lunch and a well deserved sit down take the load off and give them dogs a rest kind of break, most had been walking and standing for close to three hours... we marched back to Horton plaza to the pre-arranged lunch spot the Galaxy Grill. There the handful who toughed it out enjoyed the ambiance of a 50' s style diner complete with soda fountain, juke boxes in the booths, grilled burgers, onion rings, cherry cokes and lots of napkins. Greg Blake made it down from Orange and even ordered a burger with peanut butter on it...he said it was good!. Dave Hunt also came down in the Pl900 and was just missing us at the places we visited, however he was able to show his rare car to individuals who had probably thought they'd seen everything on four wheels.

Many thanks and a tip of the Volvo cap to Don Alford and the San Diego Auto Museum folks for allowing us to be their guests for a day.