June 1-4, 2023: Silver Lake Jeep Invasion – Silver Lake, MI
Adam Brown, Jeff Martin
Adam and Jeff worked the manufacturers midway with Lane Automotive at the Silver Lake Jeep Invasion in Silver Lake, Michigan. We had rolling displays as well as table top displays. There were over 1,100 registered Jeeps and many more on the dunes throughout the weekend. We spoke to many Jeepers about their vehicles and participated in the activities on the dunes!
June 3, 2023: CARS Inc. Open House – Rochester Hills, MI
Jason Sugden, Bob Harrell
The weather was good for the CARS Inc. Open House, with about 400 cars at the event. The trailer was steady throughout the day, with mostly restoration customers who are looking to upgrade various parts of the vehicle from stock. Suspension and engine performance seem to be the focal point for most!
June 9-11, 2023: Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival – Slippery Rock,
PA
Jay Lambert
This long-running event always draws a large crowd with about 2,500 Jeeps, 120 vendors, and 29,000 attendees! The weather was great this year, but traffic through the booth was a bit light on Friday and Sunday. This year, we participated in some of the trail run events by putting on winching clinics on Thursday and Friday. The groups consisted of novice Jeepers and the presentation was very well received. The show itself gets a mixture of life-long Jeep owners and first timers, with many bringing their entire family to check out the vendors.
June 23-25, 2023: Back to the 50’s – St. Paul, MN
Mike Maul, Matt Ross
The was not a normal year in terms of attendance for the Back to the 50’s event by MSRA. The total car count when registration closed on Saturday was 9,824, which is down considerably from last year. Friday was better than usual for foot traffic and was normal on the car side. Saturday’s forecast called for rain, which likely kept the car and foot traffic down. Much of the conversation with customers varied – plenty of muscle car and pick-up questions, with a lot of interest in driveshafts. The standard Mustang II questions along with asking questions about why we don’t have tubular products for their 1941 (fill in the blank) where common.
June 30 – July 2, 2023: Classic Truck Throwdown – Conroe, TX
Steve Boronski
The Classic Truck Throwdown is a spinoff of the Spring Lone Star Throwdown event. The main change is that all vehicles must be 1998 or earlier – any brand. This was a first year event with expectations being quite a bit lower than the Spring Throwdown, but they had over 600 trucks pre-registered for the event! Despite the extreme temperatures, turnout was not bad for the first year. We’re looking forward to seeing this event grow in years to come.