Past Peach State Cadillac & LaSalle Club Events

A TYPICAL YEAR’S CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR PEACH STATE CLC:
A typical year at Peach State CLC is packed with 30 or more events. Now, that’s an agenda that any member of the club can find something to participate in! Nearly every other week, twelve months out of the year… and some months we are together every week!
  • In January we rest up from the holidays, but we manage to catch a couple of cruise-ins due to our frequently spring-like weather. In 2016 we will visit the Home Office at Chick Fil A to get their tour and to see some of founder Truett Cathy’s significant collector cars.
  • In February we kick off the calendar with the Dave Comstock Chili Cook-Off. Dave loved his chili, and now that he’s gone Marty Comstock carries on by judging the entries and awarding the prizes. We have this gathering at member Dick Peden’s collection.  Sampling chili while walking among Peden’s spectacular collection of classics makes for a great event.  Dick’s ’57 Eldorado Biarritz convertible makes our hearts quiver.
  • In March we often visit the Cofer Collection of fine automobiles, where a ‘31 Dual Cowl Phaeton is the queen to a Duesenberg’s king. We meet up at the Galaxie Diner before going car gazing. Sometimes we do a laid-back drive and dine event at a pizza parlor or a bar. We usually hold the first of several Cadillac Car Clinics put on during the year at a member’s shop. Right now that’s either Bill Marsh’s shop or the one at member Marty Pecora’s Cadillac of Lake Lanier dealership in Gainesville.  We put the cars up on the lift and resolve minor problems. We help each owner make a shopping list of suggestions for major repairs, so the owner can act on our inspection.
  • In April we head out on our annual PSCLC Spring Driving Tour. Destination? It depends… It’s been Savannah, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Warm Springs, Nashville and other places! We make stops along the way. If we head east, we stop at the Ogeechee River Car Emporium where we visit the collection of member Alan Shapiro. In Savannah member Richard Lane has hosted a cocktail party and led on a hike down River Street and over to Tybee Island.
  • Also in April we cruise in the Avondale Easter Parade. Cadillacs from ’49 to 2014 will come. Who doesn’t love a parade, especially in a dressed up lavender Cadillac?
  • May is the month for the annual BOPC judged event in Marietta. We hosted in ’10 and ’14  and will again in 2018. There will be a couple dozen Cadillacs entered, along with nearly 200 Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. We always come away with several major awards. Also in May we try to find our way to Truett Cathy’s home. The founder of “Chick-Fil-A” restaurants has passed away, but we expect the family will once again open its three-building collection of classics for PSCLC and other clubs. The collection includes several Cadillacs dating to the brass era. How can you beat a chicken sandwich and photos taken with a 1917 Cadillac 7-Passenger Touring Sedan? We will have another Cadillac Car Clinic in May as well.
  • June will be packed with activity. In the past we have taken one-day cruises into the north Georgia Mountains. When we can we work with member Rob Compton, who welcomes us to his farm to have fresh grilled trout on the deck. In the mountains we can drive to scenic Helen for a Hot Air Balloon Festival or farther north to drive the “Tail of the Dragon,” a twisty two-lane worth every minute. Navigate your Cadillac through the hairpins! It’s a two-hour drive home to Atlanta, but no one regrets even a minute on such days.
  • July is another very busy month. On more than one occasion Peach State has taken as many as 15 Cadillacs cruising a couple of hours south of Atlanta to the Whistle Stop Café, where the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed. We try to cruise over to Dickey Farms, where the world’s best peaches were being harvested. Peach ice cream is the best in July!
  • Throughout the year PSCLC attends the many Saturday cruise-ins around the area. That includes the Po Boys Cruise-In in Canton, the Galaxy Diner in Tucker, the downtown Tucker cruise-in, where Peach State is the featured marque once each summer. Canton downtown is another favorite cruise-in, on Friday evenings all summer long. Those mellow mid-50’s pastels in several shades can put on quite a show when folks are so used to metal-flake muscle cars. We’ve even done Roswell’s “Alive After Five” event, as a featured group.
  • In July or August a large contingent of PSCLC cars will head to the CLC Grand Nationals. We have attended as a group in Cherry Hill NJ, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Columbus OH, St. Augustine, Boston, upstate New York, and Racine WI to name a few.  Snake-proof boots are part of the attire when eight or nine carloads of PSCLC members drive as many as two hours to remote “grave yards” for old Cadillacs and other makes in the backwoods of rural north and south Georgia. We take our tools and pick parts for our cars!  “Cadillacs in the Grave Yard” is always a great success. Too bad these sites are becoming so rare – but if they are out there we will find them!
  • September is time for another Cadillac Car Clinic. Several members’ cars ride the lift for inspection and correction – while the rest of us just stand around and tell lies. Other special events such as the “Mystique of the Automobile” in Athens, a festival in Cartersville, or a concert at the Strand Theater in Marietta, are all on the schedule when we have time.
  • In October  “Sunday in the Park” is an annual downtown Atlanta event held at the historic Oakland Cemetery in the run-up to Halloween. It’s a street party that attracts thousands of young and old folks for a day of dressing in period attire and savoring some local delicacies. A line-up of our Cadillacs offers some of the sweetest delicacies to be found. We start out at Josie Starnes’ for a wonderful brunch prepared by her and her friends. Then we teleport our cars from the Fifties and Sixties to the Cemetery and park around the perimeter so we can watch people teleport themselves from the 1890s to stroll among our cars.
  • Also in October is usually our three-day Fall Driving tour. We go a different direction from the spring tour. We have visited the Andersonville National Historic Site, and the Jimmy Carter peanut farm. In 2015 we drove to see the BMW assembly plant and beautiful downtown Greenville in NW South Carolina. We typically cover 200-250 leisurely miles on Georgia back roads, and try to avoid the Interstate Highways. These tours are CLC-sanctioned. (Our members’ cars own the vast majority of the CLC’s Driving Tour badges.) Our Cadillacs usually attend a judged show at Marist High School, conducted for a charitable cause by PSCLC member Jimmy Jones. As autumn fills the mountains with nature’s splendor, the fall colors provide the perfect backdrop for the Rides of Lake Arrowhead event.  This is yet another community event organized by PSCLC members Lee Dunn and Jack Hurley.
  • In November PSCLC hosts its annual Member Appreciation Picnic. In the past we have held it at the lake home of a member, or at the Duluth Train Museum. In 2015 member John Landstrom hosted a low country shrimp boil instead of having a picnic. Peach State members will take advantage of BBQ ribs or shrimp or burgers – whatever is great, with all the trimmings. It’s all provided by the club at no cost to members.  The yard is always full of classic Cadillacs!
  • Also in November, the Hilton Head SC Concours d’Elegance often invites our members’ cars for display. We have a few that are Sunday show cars, but the rest of us will go to participate in the Car Club Jamboree. We have had winners on Sunday: In 2011 Stan Tucker’s’56 Fleetwood Sixty Special took a major award in the preservation class. Martina Butler, Lewis Schwartz and Rob Johns have also taken major awards at Hilton Head. November is usually the month for our final Cadillac Car Clinic each year. 
  • In December we hold our annual Awards Banquet and Christmas Party at the exclusive Atlanta Country Club. A packed house of PSCLC members will attend. Parked in rows near the entrance, our classics attract a slew of golfers in their knickers. They are known to detour from the 18th hole to have a photo taken and to reminisce about the cars. Also in December is the Fayetteville Christmas Parade, about an hour south of the Atlanta Country Club. A few of our members’ Cadillacs, led by member Paul Oddo, will welcome Santa on his arrival to Fayetteville.
GRILLE BADGES:
The badge on the left is a dealer option numbered for loyal Cadillac customers.
The one on the right is the one awarded by CLC for touring miles:
500+ miles in two separate sanctioned tours wins the award!

 Want to learn how to EARN that badge on the right?
Click here for more information about the CLC National’s Touring Program