Waterdown Swap Meet

I headed over to Waterdown on Saturday to the swap meet. I’ve not been to many swap meets but I really enjoy them. It’s not often that I actually find any parts for either of my cars but I love poking around anyway. This was my first trip to a Waterdown Swap Meet and it did not disappoint.

It was actually a grey and rainy day early on and for several days leading up to the meet. The fields that the vendors were in were muddy and slippery but no one seemed to mind a great deal. While I enjoyed the meet itself, I wasn’t having the best of days.

Parking was very difficult as both of the lots were full when I arrived. I wound up parking further down the road in a public school lot. Apparently this is where they placed anyone who has never parked a car before. Not a single car was actually parked correctly in the clearly marked spaces. One guy actually parked his extremely beat-up ‘67 Dart crosswise on four parking spots. I don’t recall every seeing an entire lot of crappy parkers before.

I got 10 minutes outside of town and discovered that I had forgotten my camera. I stewed about that one for a while. I had only my work and personal smartphones with me so that was the best I could do for taking pictures. I’ve never gone to a car show without my camera before and I was a little bitter about it. Not having my beloved Nikon SLR would mean a serious restriction in both the quality and quantity of my picture taking.

After having finished my shopping, I headed back to the parking lot, half expecting to see my Pontiac in much worse shape than when I arrived due to the questionable driving/parking skills of the owners of all of the other cars in the lot. I was surprised to find the car intact when I returned but distraught to find that I had left my headlights on. …the joys of driving a 30 year old car. The Pontiac has had a bad battery since I bought it, just not bad enough for it to be a priority. Fortunately the Pontiac started up find after a number of complaints.

I did manage to locate a 1981 GM Product Guide as well as a 1977-1981 GM Parts catalogue. I was pretty stoked to find that catalogue but considered abandoning the 25 pound tome about halfway through the 10 minute hike back to the car. Due to the weight and cumbersome size of that nifty book, I took few pictures at the car show and those were only of station wagons. I’d say there was probably around 150 cars there and a number of them were spectacular but juggling my book and my smartphone was difficult to say the least so I just kept walking.

Here are the station wagon pictures that I did manage to take. I really did a double-take when I saw that 1996 Roadmaster wagon. Apart from the Collectors Edition badging and the cloth interior, it’s pretty much identical to my 1994 Roadmaster. (My new wood trim looks much cooler though)