THE KRASL ART MUSEUM HOSTS A CONCOUR EVENT

THE KRASL ART MUSEUM HOSTS A CONCOUR EVENT
Old Cars on the Bluff in St. Joseph, MI
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel.com

For those of you who’ve not been to St. Joseph, MI, on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan allow me the opportunity to enlighten you. Only about an hour from Chicago and perhaps 3 from Detroit, this old town is situated on a bluff overlooking the big lake. As you might expect there is a certain focus on tourism and so we find many nice shops, restaurants and one fine art museum called The Krasl.

A fellow named Dar Davis retired a few years ago from a career as director of the museum but the year before he retired they hosted a special exhibit of automotive fine art with the assistance of one of the most renowned automotive artists and member of the Automotive Fine Art Society, Tom Hale, of suburban Detroit. Along with the art they hosted an invitational collector car show.

Well, that show grew and has become the Krasl Concours d’Elegance. The Concours will be presented for the fifth time this Saturday, August 12th on the grassy knoll across the street from the museum. They have only room for about 80 cars so the show remains an intimate, informal one but they’ve been able to draw some remarkable cars.

A Concours d’Elegance (kon-kooor-dele-gance), by the way, is an invitational, judged classic and collector car show, usually with featured classes of automobiles organized by some commonality.

This weekend the show will be featuring the famous Chrysler “letter cars” from the 50s and 60s, some of the most powerful and significant performance automobiles to come out of Detroit in those days.

The two big 100th anniversaries that have been celebrated at other shows around the country will be celebrated in St. Joe as well – that of the largest industrial corporation in the world, General Motors, and the vehicle universally acknowledged as the genesis of motoring for the common man, the Model T Ford.

Other significant cars scheduled to be shown include:

* 1910 American “Underslung,” made by the American Motors Co. of Indianapolis. At a time when automotive chassis design closely resembled that of horse-drawn wagons, the Underslung's axles were above the frame rails, rather than below, resulting in a vehicle with a much lower center of gravity than its contemporaries. Owner: Off Brothers Collection, Richland, Mich.

* 1924 Studebaker Light Six, with aluminum body and six-cylinder engine, one of only five cars built for Studebaker by the Shanghai Horse Bazaar Co. in China. Owner: Studebaker National Museum, South Bend, Ind.

* 1930 Packard 7-45 Roadster, found on a farm in northern Indiana and restored by Sun Ray Restorations in Dowagiac, Mich. It will be one of four classic Packards at the show. Owner: Kent Marburger, Palatine, Ill.

* 1932 Lincoln KB Boat Tail Speedster. Long after it was built, General Motors designer Dave Holls designed and had built a sensational new body for the car. Holls helped design the 1959 Cadillac and 1963 and 1966 Buick Rivieras. Owner: Greg Bilpuch, Lake Orion, Mich.

* 1959 Chrysler 300E convertible. One of 690 300Es made, of which only 140 were convertibles. Owner: Jim Bartuska, Niles. Mich.

* 1967 Plymouth GTX Hemi two-door hardtop - one of the true muscle cars. Owner: Kerry Holmes, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

For people not interested in automobiles who may be accompanying those who are, a tour of sculptures in the downtown St. Joseph will start at 10:30AM. And, of course, the Art Center will be open as well.

Admission is just a voluntary donation of a couple bucks - or more if you like. The cars will be on display from 10AM to 4PM and every car will pass in review being described by the dean of collector car experts and MC of the premier events of the country, Ed Lucas.

Sponsors of the Krasl Art Center Concours are: Greenleaf Trust, Mid-West Family Broadcasting, Timothy's Restaurant and Tim's Too Asian Grill, Corvette Center, Meguiar's; Hagerty Collector Network, Gladiator GarageWorks, The Boulevard Inn, Lake Michigan Shore Magazine, McFadden Friendly Motors, Berrien Community Foundation, Dowagiac Commercial Press, and Southwestern Michigan Car Collectors.

More information is available at www.krasl.org. Starting May 15, it will be possible to order copies of the new book, “Driving Style: GM Design's First Century, which includes a chapter about Wayne Cherry. The bookstore price will be $75, but it will be sold by the Krasl for an advance price of $50, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the center.