For today’s post I have something a bit different, in two ways. First, I haven’t shown photos from an AMAC Presidential Show and Shine before, and second, it’ll be biased more towards photos than normal, with less commentary from me.

When I shot these I did so without really knowing if I’d be using them for the site or not. Rather, I was photographing more for my own records and just to have fun; I always have fun photographing events mind you, but you know what I mean. As such what you’ll see today is a largely “unscripted” collection of photos. I say unscripted in the sense that as I shot these without thinking so much about compiling a set of photos for coverage, my camera simply found itself being pointed at whatever caught my eye – be it a full car or a detail of another – so you certainly won’t see a full representation of what was at the event.

Regardless, I might as well also add a bit of background on the event itself given that it’s something new for the site. Some of you will be aware that I’m a member of the Calgary Thunderbird Club; traditionally, it has worked closely with the Alberta Mustangs Auto Club (AMAC). Various members from each club will regularly attend the other’s annual show and shine as a show of support, and this year was no different; when AMAC’s event came up a few of us made the trek up to Airdrie to take part.

The event was held at Cam Clark Ford, a venue that the Thunderbird Club has even previously used for events, and within the showroom a nice display of Mustangs had been set up including an officially-licensed Eleanor next to a GT500KR convertible. Messing around, they were not…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy today’s photos. This was one of those times when the weather unfortunately didn’t stay on our side; before the scheduled end of the show the skies opened and began to absolutely chuck it down. The show was naturally wrapped up early because of this, but we still had plenty of time to hang out, catch up with friends, check out the cars, and in general have some fun.  

I’ll start things off with this ’79 Mustang, which will show up a few times in today’s post (and was in front of my lens a lot) because it was one of my clear favourites from the day. Stripped to a shell at one point, it had been completely rebuilt with tons of upgrades throughout; a new engine, transmission, cage, suspension, aero, etc etc etc. Stunning build.

This Roush belongs to Scott, the president of AMAC, and is one I always like for one main reason – the tucked engine bay! Especially with such a brightly-painted car, clearing out some of the underhood clutter makes a huge difference (*looks at Focus’ engine bay in disgust*).

This was a definite crowd-pleaser; the officially-licensed Eleanor mentioned at the start, complete with all of the details as you’d expect…

…such as the monster NOS bottle out back and of course, the Go Baby Go button on the shifter. It was super cool to see one of these in person. Happily we also got to hear it when it was fired up during the event; much loud.

If movie cars weren’t your thing though, there was of course that GT500KR sitting next to it…and that’s possibly the most restrained reaction ever to seeing one of these in person.

I know nothing about this because it wasn’t part of the show and only randomly popped up in the parking lot partway through the day, but the patina was amazing.

What can you always find at car shows besides cars? Dogs.

Yes, I’m throwing in some of Mustard. I get to do that.

Side note/quick story: As it turns out, Justin actually works up at Cam Clark so we were able to catch up and chat with him for a bit while there. I guess he had told one of his co-workers about the sedan, to which the response was “but it’s not a real ST then…”. We had to laugh at that because we had the same reply: “that’s kind of the entire point!” Hahaha. You either get it or you don’t.

Apparently Mustangs’ backs have gotten more sloped over the years?

The random stuff I notice; I took this photo specifically because I found it amusing that the little pedal cart had a dog-leg gearbox. Or, dog-leg gearbox sticker…

There were a couple of RS LEs sitting around so I took a quick peruse, naturally. One of these (in Race Red) would be fun but could I justify $60K for it? That’s of course totally ignoring the fact that I don’t have $60K to tie up in another car but hey…(and we all know that if I did, I’d probably spend it all on a container of S15s instead).

Regular readers may recognize this Mustang from previous entries on the site; twin turbos, custom paintwork (including an airbrushed mural under the hood), seats, a full sound system, and more; this is a rather complete build and one that seems to get out to a lot of events!

One quick shot of that ’79’s interior, and its custom dash.

And finally, one from when I was trying to stay dry during the downpour; it was easily the heaviest rainstorm I’ve ever been caught in. A few of us were huddled under the open side panel of one of the car trailers as the awards were being called, hoping it’d lighten up in time for the run back to our cars, but it didn’t. I only had to run a few aisles over to the Focus but even in that distance I got completely drenched from head to toe. The camera was dry though, and that’s all that mattered. Haha

I hope you all enjoyed these AMAC photos, and be sure to check back soon for a quick update on Sriracha! It’s our main focus for Sunday School this year and we’re trying to get somewhat of a makeover carried out on it, but we’re encountering some hiccups. I guess we were overdue for some sort of challenge with one of the cars, right? Isn’t that how these things are supposed to go?

-Bill