As a younger boy growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, I spent a lot of time at Santa Cruz surfing and just plain partying on and around the beach at Santa Cruz. In the era that surrounded 1962 through 1966, most of us were driving station wagons with a surfboard of two sticking out of the back window. I was lucky enough to have had a 1956 Chevrolet station wagon that belonged to the parents, but did the job very well to haul the surfboards and a few friends over the mountain to the beach at Santa Cruz. Many of my friends had woodies, the coolest of the surfer vehicles, but the Chevy wagon was plenty cool enough to get us there and back.
This past weekend, the annual gathering of the National Woody Club happened at the Santa Cruz Wharf. A gathering of some 185 classic woodies all parked for display on the wharf. This is always a very great show, this year was no exception. Check out the Video below.
See the Drone Video of the woodies and the Beach at Santa Cruz. https://youtu.be/W92349BGH7c
Many of the woodies were sporting
license plates with monikers like "LIL WODY," "WDY4DAD"
AND "51 WUDDY." There were some 185 vehicles on display proving that Woodies
are still very popular even some 50 years after their initial surfer popularity. Woodies of almost every age, color, size and make
lined the pier as attendees meandered and observed.
"Every
year there's a lot of unique cars here," said Bob Barbour, one of the
club's founding members and a Woody owner. Barbour
said that although the turnout of woodies was not disappointing, it was
slightly lower than years past due to the weak economy and poor gas prices.
Usually there are more than 200 Woodies in the show. "This
is almost exactly what we guessed it would be," he said. About
75 to 80 percent of the Woodies were returning participants from years past,
according to Santa Cruz Woodies President Ken Francis.
Read more at http://www.scsextra.com/story.php?sid=77791
I'm glad to see the revival of such cool vehicles where they were seen in great numbers in the days of the Beach Boys and Surfin' USA. Hope to see this event continue for many more years. ;o)
