2010 Carlise Ford Nationals - East Coast Entertainment

Another brightly hued '69 we spied was Kirby Place's Mach 1. You could see the attention to detail everywhere on Kirby's SportsRoof and the amount of chrome underhood meant we were thankful we had our sunglasses on!

It's no secret we love engine swaps around here, so when we strolled past Chris DeJarnette's '70 SportsRoof we were expecting another pushrod Ford. Low and behold Chris tried to pull a fast one on us by bolting his Shaker assembly....

....(which is functional) to the top of a 4.6L Four-Valve modular! The 305-horse modular is controlled by an ACCEL Gen 7 DFI setup and the SportsRoof features a Mustang II frontend, five-speed trans, '04 Mach 1 power leather seats, and more.

When you see decals like these you know this car has a story or two to tell. Greg Boozel's '64 Comet certainly looks the part, but we had no way of knowing if Greg's Comet was the real deal or a nicely done tribute.....

.... It pays to have a little info displayed with your car at an event, remember that. Nonetheless, this Comet looked great and ready to head down the 'strip.

Another well-screwed-together engine swap participant was found in Dean Koncsol's '65 Mustang convertible. Dean's running a late-model 5.0L roller small-block with Ford's production EEC-IV EFI. The drop-top also featured rack-and-pinion power steering, Fox Mustang high-back sport bucket seats, disc brakes, and more.

Where else are you going to see seven 7-Litre Galaxies lined up in a row but at the Carlisle Ford Nationals. It's a once-a-year pilgrimage to see the greatest stuff Ford has ever built.

When we hit the truck section of the Carlisle Ford Nationals we have become accustomed to seeing everything from V-8 Rangers to early F-1s and all sorts of stuff in between. But we have to say this is the first time we've seen such a super clean classic F-series with a later-model diesel engine swap.....

....This F-250 Camper Special looked clean enough to eat off of and had all the right details, but when you got to the engine compartment there sat a first gen F-series diesel (a 7.3L we believe)-a pretty cool engine swap in our books.

The vendor midway is always a great place to find what you need for your classic Ford or Mustang build. Mike and Jim Ring had their "Afterburner" Fairlane on display in the building-T invitational area, but they also brought out their vendor trailer to Carlisle for the first time. Other regular vendors included TMI Products, Pypes Exhaust, Meguiar's, Ford Racing, and much more.

Of course, if you think the vendor midway is booming, then all you need to do is head over to the swap meet area to see that things were absolutely crazy over there. From classic Ford car and truck parts, Mustang parts, and engines, to complete project cars, detailing products, tools, and much more, you could find it in the huge swap meet area. You'll even find major dealers like CJ Pony Parts and Tony Branda Shelby and Mustang Parts vending within the swap meet area as well.

Moving inside to the building-T invitational display area, one of the first rides we spotted was the '70 Mustang Mach 1 that competed in the Bullrun TV show earlier this year. While the duo didn't make it too far into the show, it was still great to see some classic Ford iron compete in the driving contest.

Also in building-T were these two extremely low-mile examples of Ford's F-series "Explorer" package. We're talking less than 500 miles on each of these rare trucks. Both trucks are part of National Parts Depot's massive car collection. One came from their Michigan store and one from their Florida store.

While her story was local news to us here in Florida, the amazing tale of Rachel Veitch and her '64 Comet Caliente has gone national. Rachel is the original owner of "Chariot," which at 45 years old has more than 600,000 miles on it. Rachel herself is 91 and still drives her Comet. She jokes that her car has served her better than all of her past ex-husbands and she loves to show people receipts for "lifetime" replacement parts that she bought decades ago. Her Comet was on display in building-T and we got to meet Rachel at the Saturday luncheon. Here, she's being given a nice pencil drawing of her own car by renowned artist David Snyder of David Snyder Car Art.

Every year there are plenty of things to watch and do at the Carlisle Ford Nationals. The burnout competition is one of the most popular, bringing all sorts of Fords, from supercharged late-models, to big-block classics into the water box to fry some rubber. This Starsky & Hutch Torino was certainly giving it all this year. Smoke 'em til they pop everyone!

Part of our Saturday event travels included finding a "celebrity pick" that each media guest is asked to do for Carlisle Events. Trust me, with a show field like this it is not an easy task and we went back and forth between several cars before we decided that Vince Denno's '68 Mustang fastback earned the honor this year. It's hard not to love the Dark Highland Green Bullitt theme and those late-model Bullet wheels, especially the deep dish rears, as they just give the car the perfect stance.

Gabriel Ducote's '65 Mustang coupe had a black paintjob that looked six miles deep, even in the light rain we had when we spotted his ride. Gabriel's coupe runs a nicely warmed up 351W and has some really nice details to it. Look for an upcoming feature on Gabriel's car in Modified Mustangs & Fords too!

Lastly, building-T held some of Ford's finest performance machines as part of the Ford History, Design & Performance Display. Not only were show goers in awe of the quartet of 289 Cobras on display, but also an honest-to-God GT40. This GT40 was a '66 Mark II and is owned by none other than Lee Holman, who we had the pleasure of meeting this year as well. Finally, just past the GT40 was a selection of rare pre-production built Ford GT supercars.