Clifford Show A Smash Hit

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CLIFFORD, ON — This year’s version of the Classic and Antique Trucks Show put on by the Great Lakes Truck Club was a huge success, running Friday and Saturday, July 3 and 4. The club’s sixth annual event was awash with trucks and truck lovers, drawing what looked like more than 300 old-timers to the Rotary Club park here in this small town a couple of hours northwest of Toronto. And somebody ordered the best weather ever.

From the Tackaberry collection: a spotless 1961 West CoasterLast year’s official truck count was 244 but this time it was very obviously bigger. And the trucks were still rolling in late Saturday afternoon as folks gathered for the popular BBQ dinner.

Joanne Zurbrigg, wife of club executive member Verdun Zurbrigg, is the very capable woman in charge of the event’s administrative side, and she said they’d almost run out of places to put trucks by Saturday morning. Luckily they had an overflow area available. Assigned camping spots were sold out before the show began, she said, and we saw people at the ticket desk booking their spots for next year. Verdun told us that four people have actually reserved their preferred camping places for life!

What started as a let’s-see-what-happens event attached to the town’s custom car show six years ago has clearly struck a chord. It went solo the following year and just hasn’t looked back. What seems to appeal to people is the straightforward nature of the show — no vendors, no prizes, no competition, just a gathering of trucks and truckers from a time when things were an awful lot simpler than they are now.

Each year a section of the park is set aside for one truck marque, and this year it was International’s turn. A few dozen trucks filled the space, ranging from a 1909 Auto Buggy with a two-cylinder air-cooled engine to a current-model LoneStar built especially for the show. Erb Transport was well represented in there along with several trucks from the massive Tackaberry collection.

Next year’s featured OEM will be Freightliner, Kenworth in 2017.

Nova Scotia's Derek Rose with the '86 Western Star tht was his first truckAmong this year’s participants was Nova Scotia’s Derek Rose who pulled in with a beautiful Cat-powered 1986 Western Star that we actually featured as our Truck of the Month a few years ago. It was his first truck. But the irony is, he sold it 20 years back to Steve Carano of Palgrave, ON. Carano couldn’t make it to the show so Rose volunteered to drive west, with his son in tow, and bring the truck to Clifford. He was a very happy guy, seeing the show for the first time and getting re-acquainted with his first ride.

“You never forget your first truck,” he said.

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Rolf Lockwood is editor emeritus of Today's Trucking and a regular contributor to Trucknews.com.


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