One of the most popular annual car shows in San Diego County each year is the Wavecrest Woodie Meet, billed by the San Diego Woodies car club (sponsor and host of the event) on the event’s Facebook page as “the longest-running gathering of wooden automobiles in the world.”Held on the third weekend of September each year, it is a nostalgic celebration of cars from a long-gone era, whose bodies were made of real wood.
Woodie wagons were especially popular for carrying surfboards to the beach in Southern California, so it is appropriate that the car show portion of this event takes place overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, California. This car show is free for the public, and no advance registration or fee is required.
The organizers planned several days of fun and activities, which made this event especially attractive not only to locals, but to out-of-towners as well. This year’s four-day event drew entries from as far away as Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
This, the 45th Annual Wavecrest Woodie Meet, began on Thursday evening, Sept. 19, with a late afternoon and early evening Classic Car Show in downtown Encinitas on the famous Highway 101. Then, on Friday, there was a “Meet & Greet” with appetizers and drinks, poolside at the event hotel (The Encinitas Hotel & Suites).
Saturday was the day of the event’s signature Wavecrest Woodies car show, located close to the beach within the Moonlight Beach parking lot (at 4th and C Street). Several of the show cars were displayed on a cul-de-sac and the bottom of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The view was spectacular.
The weather for the car show was SoCal beautiful and the event attracted a couple hundred woodies. Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., visitors were free to roam around, take pictures, speak with the cars’ owners and get a real taste of classic Southern California car culture. Woodies slowly cruised in and out of the parking lot, and along the nearby Encinitas streets.
A DJ played music, woodie memorabilia and car parts were for sale, and a surf board was raffled off. Since I drove there in my Miata (and I’ve never surfed!), I did not buy a raffle ticket for the surf board.
Towards the end of the car show, as I was walking around and taking pictures, I heard the event’s announcer introducing the winner of their “LONG DISTANCE DRIVEN” award — and I particularly noted that this winner drove his woodie all the way from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Calgary is my hometown, so of course I headed straight over there, where I asked Neil Roach and his daughter about their 1951 Ford Meteor and the 1,600-mile road trip. By the way, for those of you who may notice, that grill is indeed from a ’49 Meteor. Neil bought his ’51 in 2005, and it needed a lot of work. He changed out the engine and the rest of the drivetrain for a much more modern one from a Lincoln Continental, completing the work about four years ago.
They also won the HARD LUCK AWARD, because on their way to Wavecrest the in-tank fuel pump failed. That left the car stranded on the road twice — once near Las Vegas and once outside of Barstow. Fortunately they found a great mobile mechanic in Barstow, who fixed it in an O’Reilly Auto Parts parking lot.
According to their website (www.sandiegowoodies.com ), San Diego Woodies is a chapter of the National Woodie Club. It was created in 2001 “to foster camaraderie among woodie enthusiasts from near and far and to provide a forum through which owners and fans of woodies may share their common infatuation for these great treasures of automobile history.”
The club schedules and participates in many other car-related events and activities in the greater San Diego area, aside from Wavecrest — including cruises and Woodie meets.
The event ended on Sunday morning with the 25-mile Woodies Cruise along historic Pacific Coast Highway, from Encinitas City Hall to Oceanside.
To learn about the National Woodie Club, visit www.woodies.clubexpress.com.
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