As a rule, I am not superstitious; however, life can take some strange turns that can’t be explained. Some events can be explained, while others can’t. The story I am about to tell you is 100% true. I will not mention any specific locations or times to protect the innocent. I will say that Katrina and I will never return to a certain City or Show again. To explain, let me begin. This past year, 2025, my wife, Katrina, and I took our 1969 Ford Talladega out to a major car show out of state. What I am about to explain was not the car’s fault. It has been a multiple Best in Show winner. It is a good car.
As a way of background, we had attended this particular show (none of the photos in this article are from this show) a year earlier with another Best in Show winning car and, unfortunately, had a very disappointing experience with that car at the show. We shook it off and said we would try again next year with the Talladega if it would be invited. It had been some time since we had it out to a show, so we decided to spend the year giving it a mild refresh and get it running top notch.
I have always believed that if you own a car that appears to be a “lemon”, one that always seems to have mechanical troubles or is a magnet for being hit by other vehicles, you must get rid of it. My experience with one car I really liked taught me that it will likely continue to be a problem and will likely get worse. To date, I have only owned one such vehicle. I had owned a nearly identical one and sold it. After some time, I decided I wanted another one like it. I never had an ounce of trouble and loved driving it. I was moving out of state and could not take it with me.
I looked for a long time before the right car showed up. It was just what I wanted, a C3 Corvette with the L82 engine. Unfortunately, it was one issue after another with it.
The engine blew up while cruising on the interstate at a reasonable speed. It was hit 3 times by other cars while it was sitting still! It caught fire while backing out of our garage. The last straw came when it was stolen from a restoration shop where I was having it repainted. I had picked up the car, and it had a minor issue,e so I took it back for an overnight repair. Before I could pick it up, the owner of the shop called and asked if I had picked it up already!
That was a bad sign! It was reported stolen immediately. The next day It was found, engine running, and slammed into a post on a boat dock. The thieves had their way with it and decided to send it into the Cumberland River in Nashville!
The car seemed to have a curse that was always hovering over it. I don’t want to say that it was jinxed or cursed, but I certainly did not argue with the insurance company when they wanted to total it. I loved the car, but it was just too much drama.
What does all this have to do with attending a car show? Well, let me tell you about a place/show we will never return to. As I mentioned, in 2025, we were invited to attend a very prestigious show. As soon as we arrived, everything seemed to go wrong. I will not go into details about last year’s experience, but when we got home, we had to do a $12,000 engine rebuild on our show car that had less than 1,000 miles on the engine!
When we were invited back in 2026 to show our Talladega, we were excited to redeem ourselves. We wanted to take a bullit proof top notch car. Unfortunately, this year, things started out even worse.
First off, the show’s host hotel is a five star resort on an ocean beach. When we checked in, they had us booked for the wrong nights. They knew we were with the show, and we had booked through the show link. This could have been a major problem, but after a conversation with the manager, the front desk was able to find us a room for our entire stay. The room was not as good as the one we had the previous year, but at least we had a room. Next up, the TV in the room only wanted to work on its schedule. I could turn it on, but not select the channel we wanted. The next time it might work or not, its choice. It might work fine without doing anything. It continued this way for the entire 4 day stay. Next up, the night light in the bathroom would not work, making late night bathroom calls a bit dangerous in a strange room. We were getting annoyed, but we were determined not to let it impact our fun weekend adventure.
Again, on the first night, as we were getting ready to hit the sack, both Katrina and I seemed to be either too hot or too cold in the room. I kept adjusting the thermostat a degree at a time to no avail. The hotel’s thermostat would not comply. No matter where I set the temperature, it did not agree. It would not take the temperature I entered. It would be either much too hot or much too cold; there was no in between. I gave up and put another blanket on the bed. We got a good night’s sleep, even without control of the heat or TV, and no nightlight!
The next morning was our free day. We like to plan an extra day to enjoy the local area. As I was doing my morning routine, I found that my electric shaver would not work. Its battery was dead, and I had no charger. I have never had this happen! The rest of the day was generally uneventful. We did an early cleanup on the Talladega so there would be less to do on show day. We walked the beach and ate a lot of seafood. All was good.
On show day, we had to get up early, drive to the trailer storage field, get the car out, and head for the show field. We were at a car show, all that’s important is that the car does well, and we enjoy the event and meet some new friends. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Now things really started going downhill! The Talladega has always been one of our most dependable and easy to drive show cars. We had just gone through it, put in a new battery, and had all the electronics checked.
We unloaded the car and drove to the showgrounds. As soon as we arrived, the car overheated and died. We were able to get some other owners’ help push the car into our show spot. How embarrassing is that? After letting the Talladega cool down, I wanted to see if I could get it started. Nope, the car still refused to fire. At that point, we also noticed that some little electrical issues were showing up. That was really bad because at this particular show, the cars are judged not only for authenticity and condition, but also mechanically; everything must work!
We now had a car that would not start, plus we discovered the running lights would not light, the heater blower would not blow, the cigarette lighter would not heat, and the heater and defroster would not do their things. Obviously, the Talladega did not do well in judging. As a side note, the Judges were some of the worst we have ever encountered. I am not blaming them for the car’s poor performance; they simply did not know what they were supposed to be doing.
Fast forward, the show was over, and it was time to leave. Opps, remember the car would not restart to reach its show field location and would not start for the judges? Were we going to need a tow to get to our trailer at the hotel? I decided to try one more time to get the car started. Well, it fired right up to leave the show field!
We never turned the engine off again. We headed back to the hotel, scratching our heads, wondering what could be going on with our beloved Talladega. At this point, we were beyond depressed. Without turning the car off, we loaded it into the trailer for the trip home in the morning.
The next morning, we hooked up the trailer and headed for Tennessee. Our F350 has never given us a minute’s worth of trouble or concern. As soon as we headed out of town, our electric mirrors decided they did not like their current settings and moved to new ones. They rejected all my attempts to set them so I could see what was beside and behind me. This is not a good thing while pulling an enclosed 24′ trailer! I got out and manually forcefully adjusted them. Not only that, but the memory settings in our seats kept moving our seating positions at will, not ours. We could not set them where we were comfortable and safe. At this point, I was just about to give up and sell everything!
We finally got out of the city traffic. That is the good news; the bad news is that the GPS and the truck’s video screen went completely blank before we could find the interstate! Now we had no GPS directions, no map, no screen, mirrors that we could not see, uncomfortable seats, and no satellite radio! This has never happened before! Not once since we bought the truck new 8 years previously! What the hell was going on! A few minutes later, all came back on. Wow, that was strange, but a relief to have it all back. We found the interstate!
I was starting to get excited, but a few miles down the interstate, everything went out again! Now, I was getting pissed. This was going to be a very expensive fix and a very difficult, uncomfortable trip home.
Then, ERICA! We were now many miles from the show field and show city, and the GPS and video screen came back to life!
For the rest of the 10 hour drive, I was a nervous wreck waiting for something else to go bad or break. It seemed that as we got a certain distance outside of that particular city, our troubles went away! Katrina and I seriously discussed whether we, the car, or both were cursed. It had now been two years were we had extremely strange experiences at this show, in this city.
Nothing more happened to the truck. It has now been many months, and there has never been one hint of any problems with the truck. We have made other trips to car shows and donkey shows. We have not had one hint of any similar problems. The items on the Talladega still need to be addressed, but that is a process for another time.
Cursed? I can not say, but I can promise you we will never attend that show again or visit that City again!
