MCACN (Muscle Car And Corvette Nationals)

It may sound like an exaggeration, but MCACN is considered by most of those who attend to be the best muscle car show in the World! The show is held in Chicago on the last weekend before Thanksgiving. You know it has to be good to attract 587 of the best muscle cars, their owners, and huge crowds of visitors to a car show in Chicago the weekend before a major holiday. Every year the featured car make rotates. This year it was Ford’s turn, next year it will be GM and MOPAR in two years. Then it will be Ford’s turn again. Being the featured car does not mean other makes can’t attend. It simply means the feature car gets more attention and more cars from that brand will be invited to this exclusive show.

Marty Burke has put together the Ford Fairlane exhibit at MCACN for many years. This year his invited cars were all very special and extremely high quality. The theme of the exhibit was “Better Idea, Big Blocks”. This harkens back to the old Ford advertising featuring a light bulb and the phrase “Ford has a better idea”.

Gary and Corrie Baker 1968 Montego R Code, 1 0f 1

Richard and Katrina Fleener 1969 Ford Talladega First Production

There was one car that got a lot of extra attention, it was a special unveiling and is owned by an actor new to the car collecting community. From the quality of the restoration and his reaction to all of the Ford crowd, he will likely become a “car guy”. David Sullivan has done several TV shows and movies but it was his 1968 428 1/2 GT that was the star of this show. The car was bought new by his father and street raced with a great reputation. Unfortunately, the car was eventually destined to be stored outside in a field with the expected results, rust, lots of rust. Before David’s dad passed away he asked David to care for his Fairlane. He promised to do so but it took some time to arrive at a place where he had the resources to do so. With the assistance of Marty Burke, David found and selected Jason Billups, Billups Classic Cars, to do the restoration. It was an extremely difficult process that was completed only days before MCACM 2023. The car received a well deserved GOLD and other recognitions at the show.

Speaking of awards, virtually every car in our group received a Gold or Special Award at this show or had received one previously at MCACM. I would suggest our group had the highest or one of the highest percentages of cars receiving recognitions at the 2023 show.

There were a lot of other terrific Ford products at the show ranging from Ford GTs to Mustangs and more. We will show you a few of those in upcoming Posts.

Here is one Talladega that was not at the show but its owner was. TV personality and true car guy and collector, Wayne Carni stopped by our exhibit to see the Talladegas on display. Wayne told me he is a big fan of the Talladega and owns a very special highly modified version. He proudly showed me a photo! I would be proud as well if I owned this Big T.