Saudi Car Show

Like in the US, when men amass a large amount of wealth they have a strong desire to turn that into a classic car or even a whole car collection.  Sometimes they even buy one (or thirty) for their 21 year old son.  Apparently among young Saudis this is becoming more common and some how it's not surprising given the general culture of materialism here in Saudi Arabia.

A few weeks ago, we somehow ended up having a little car show on campus thanks to the Yacht Club.  I wish I knew where the cars came from, but they all had Saudi license plates, so they must have been semi locally owned.

They were pretty cool cars, so I thought they were worthy of sharing.

I liked the color of this Mercedes.  Color was basically how I picked my favorites.  Any of the technical or antique details were lost on me.

Mercedes

This lime green Mercedes was just adorable.  The green hubcaps were a nice touch too.

As a safety precaution they had a fire extinguisher for every single car.  Every one.  Most of them were sitting right behind the car, but these three were lined up on the stone pavers.  It was probably the highest density of fire extinguishers on campus!

I wish the window had been rolled down further.  The inside of this car was really cool.

Steve really liked this old El Camino.

The car show was at the marina in the evening so all of the boats were docked in the harbor.

All of the plates were from Saudi Arabia, which have both Arabic numbers and letters on them as well as their English counterpart.  Reading license plates was what helped me learn to read the Arabic numbers.  Also on the sign for this car, they accidentally called it a Tornado instead of a Toronado, but that's close enough right?

I really liked the headlights on this car. They looked like eyes ogling at everyone.

A 1962 Ford Thunderbird

This 1936 Auburn Salon Phaeton is a car from a company that didn't last beyond 1936, but it sure does look cool. I loved this metal tubing on the side of the car.