Winter.  Winter storage.  Outdoor cruise season is nearing its end.  What do we do in the winter?  Well if you are in the south or the southwest, you enjoy your classic car all year around.  If you are anywhere else in the country, you prepare for the swap meet season, the indoor monster car shows, and working in the old barn on your next car project.

I live in Ohio – the winters are cold and the summers are hot.  We have a clear distinction between what we do with our cars in the winter and what we do in the summer.   We prepare all winter long for the summer and then we get our dose of car shows, drag racing, and cruises until the leaves are gone from the trees.  2 events I always look forward to – the spring ‘dust-off’ and the fall cruises when the leaves have turned.  Both times offer great cruising weather where windows are open slightly and there is no need to turn on the heat.

The winter offers many indoor swap meets where everyone picks high and low for that ‘one’ part to put on their project.  It seems that most car guys have a project going on through the winter even if it is just another project on their present ride.  It may take all winter just to get a dashboard restored – hunting for gauges, knobs, radio bezels, and then getting it all cleaned up, operational, and back together again.

Winter is a time where we meet at the corner restaurant early on Saturday mornings to prepare for the day’s swap meet.  We discuss tales of the previous summer and then strategies on how to ‘attack’ the swap meet that day.  Then end the day at a coffee shop discussing the deals we made and the new people we met to help us with our project.

Winter is also the time to travel to the convention center size car shows where we see cars that don’t seem to make the summer car shows.  Cars that are trailered to each event and setup on pedestals with all the glimmering chrome and mirrors underneath to show us there is no way the car ever sees asphalt.  It is a time to seek a celebrities autograph, meet some new vendors and getting re-motivated about finishing our next project.

In the barn we tinker on getting the small details completed on our cars.  Details we saw at the previous summer car shows on other cars.   A time when we consider a reverse hood, a new shifter, changing the intake manifold or determining where to hide the radio controls.  We figure how many potential ‘warmer’ days we can get in the barn, how far away if the first car show, and how much of the project can completed inside the house.  Once we figure what this time adds up to we can then determine what projects we want to tackle.

Ok, that is enough on my perspective of the Midwest collector and hot rod car guys – what do you do in your part of the country in the winter?