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Cannonball Run seminar at Amelia Island was one for the ages

I don't think I've been to a bad car show, and that includes the local Kamaro Klub in the Dairy Queen parking lot. But I tend to judge the shows by the afterglow--how much you remember a day or two after the event. I tend to remember a lot after every Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, and that is mostly because the founder, Bill Warner, uses his annual North Florida show to do exactly what you and I would do if we ran a big show--invite our heroes to come talk and invite the cars we'd like to look at ourselves.

Smart fortwo Edition Limited Three

Mercedes has had stick in the past for playing with its ‘Toy Car’, the Smart. What was a quality maker like Mercedes doing involved with a car the size of the boot on an S Class Mercedes and named after a watch maker (the name stands for Swatch Mercedes Art)? Don’t get me wrong; there was always going to be a market for a car designed to park ‘nose-in’ in busy European streets, but its seemed like Mercedes was stretching itself too thin at a time when it was suffering a big loss in the reputation it had for building high-quality machinery.

The Grand National Roadster Show is like church, with chrome trim

You can argue all day about which is the best and most influential hot-rod show in the world, but we'll take the Grand National Roadster Show, which will be held this weekend at the Fairplex in Pomona, Calif. This is the 61st running of what grizzled veterans have simply called "Oakland," after the city that hosted it for its first half-century. This is the seventh year the show has been held in the Art Deco halls and sprawling avenues of the Fairplex, all of which will be under sunny skies and balmy temps all weekend.