By Marcal Eilenstein
Sunday July 28 was the Kirkland Classic Car Show, hosted by The Legends Car Club. The show itself was a massive turnout, with all of the streets in downtown Kirkland full of cars and trucks on display. If you’ve never attended a car show in Kirkland, let me set the scene for you.
Sitting on the banks of Lake Washington, Kirkland has always been a place for the well-heeled to live and play, a place to escape the hustle and bustle of Seattle. People don’t come to Kirkland to eat at a great restaurant; they come to be seen eating a great restaurant. People don’t drive through downtown because it’s convenient; they drive through downtown to be seen driving through downtown. Image is everything here. With that in mind, this was a very different car show compared to anything I had seen this summer. Still, I figured, great cars are great cars, no matter who’s showing them or looking at them.
In honor of Truck Thursday, I want to show you some of my favorite haulers from that weekend. Some are fancy, some are plain, but all of them look good to me in one way or another. See if you don’t concur.
I got two things right that day, and one thing very, very wrong. First, I came early: even though this was my first time attending this show, I knew that it was going to be huge, and I also knew that the crowds would be thronging. I would literally be rubbing shoulders with fellow attenders.
Second, I knew parking would be scarce. Instead of fighting traffic and trying to snag a close spot, I parked about seven blocks north of downtown and walked in. Not only did I have a much easier time parking, I got to see several nice cars and trucks parked along the way. I would not have seen these if I had been circling downtown for a parking spot. That’s a Hooniverse Handy Hint for you – some of the best cars you can see in traffic are while you’re pounding the pavement.
You can guess which truck was my favorite.
What did I get very, very wrong? Well, I stepped out that morning with my wallet, keys, BlackBerry, and hotspot – I have a mental checklist I always run through. Missing from my checklist, though, was my camera! Instead of hundreds of high quality images to share with you this week, I was left with dozens of good, not great, pictures. Mea culpa.
That’s it for now. Sometime in the next few days, I will have roundup of some of my favorite classic cars from this big show. I hope you enjoy the trucks.
[Photos Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Marcal Eilenstein]
Ross Ballot 
Kamil Kaluski
Love that (actual) Step Bumper on the F-250. Why don't manufacturers still make these?
Back in the day pickups did not come (usually) with factory rear bumpers. Rear bumpers were a dealer installed option, sometimes with the dealer's name stamped on bumper or the bumper was left up to the buyer. Trailer hitch dealers sold rear bumpers and deer catchers for pickups. Now it looks like all new pickups come with factory rear bumpers.
Wow- I thought truck bumpers were mandated by now but I just read the nhtsa faq about bumpers and they are not.
And sadly, when people restore old pickups, the step bumpers usually get tossed. Sad; I always like seeing those, and recognizing the name of a long-gone Ford or Chevy dealer.
A rear bumper was still an option on first-gen Tacomas.
That 50's Chevy pickup has some real Electric Green paint. Does it glow in the Dark?
Over restored.
Stance? Get off my lawn!
And how'd you get up my driveway in the first place?!