Zenith Awards and More

After breakfast we met David Rooney and Wally Latham at The Auburn, Cord, Duesenburg Museum.  As a group with Marion and Mark Alpine, Fred Trusty and Ralph Towner we all toured the museum.  The museum is three stories full of beautiful cars with floor two full of historical literature and books.  The collection included many rare vehicles and a few you could climb in and get your photo taken.
The Auburn Automobile Company administration building is part of the campus where cars were hand-assembled, rather than mass-produced. The showroom and administrative buildings were designed by architect Alvin M. Strauss in Art Deco style and were built in 1930. The facility's showroom and administrative buildings, the service and new parts building, and the L-29 building were together declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005. The museum is organized into seven galleries that display over 120 cars and related exhibits such as restored Auburn Automobile company offices. Some exhibits have interactive kiosks that allow a visitor to hear the sounds the car makes and to see related videos and photographs that show details of what is under the hood of the car.
After the museum we all headed out for lunch at Mad Anthony.  They seated us right away and served us some great food.  We all enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.
We headed back to the auction.  Darrin stayed at the auction and I went around and talked to more vendors about coming to the Mobile show.  Darin saw a car he wanted and it took everything he had to hold his arm down.  He has kicked himself ever since.

The last of the Zenith cats arrived before 9 am and judging started.  Judging took most of the day. In the afternoon Steve Moskowitz explained the process of judging the cars to Wes Peterson and I. The judges are broke into two sets of five.  They were easy to spot in their blue shirts.  Every team looked at every car for several hours inside, outside and underneath.  Each team would score each car sometimes looking at the car over and over.  When they were finished they all met in a meeting room to go over the scores and decide what is the best and what is second best.  Steve was appointed to be the Chief Judge of the Zenith cars and his job was to oversee that the judges did their job correctly.  He explained to We and I that the cars would come down to 1 or less points between them and he explained how to tie break.  The conversation was not only interesting it was intriguing.

The Zenith awards were given out in the auction area.  One by one the owners were called up to get their trophy for being a Zenith car.  Every car invited to display at the event got a trophy. I had spent a good amount of time talking with Russel and Teresa Huval during the three days we were there.  They had brought their 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air to the March 2018 show in Mobile.  As Steve Moskowitz announced the field of Zenith winners the Huvals were not called.  My nerves were getting the best of me.  Could the 1958 Chevy be the Zenith Winner?  They were the very last owner called up before the announcement of the runner ups and winner were called.  Excitement and heartbreak.  How cool it would have been for a Mobile car to win the Zenith top honor.

Evening brought us a free concert in the Auction area.  The band was a 50s and 60s cover band with "Elivs" making an appearance.  During the entertainment all the drinks were free.  The band played for two hours and the crowd loved it.