Hershey AACA Fall Meet

The Hershey AACA Fall Meet and flea market have been must-attend events for decades. There are a lot of reasons and the first has to be what has to be one of the largest classic car parts swap meets in the world.

Just seeing all of the flea market is a multi-day affair. After exploring and shopping for two straight days, we found that we had walked more than 16 miles of the flea market and still had not fully covered the event. We did recommend taking comfortable shoes in our preview article.

We found everything from complete unrestored car projects to scores of parts, to weird stuff including a very strange Ronald McDonald head. There was a ton of merchandise, including vintage brochures and signage and marque-specific ephemera.  If you are searching for American classic car parts, you are likely to find them at the flea market.

In addition to the flea market, there was also one of the biggest car corrals we have seen. This year’s car corral had hundreds of cars with everything from tri-five Chevys to Packards and Fords, too many Cadillacs to name and even a Minerva. There were some tremendous bargains with many nice driver-level cars available for less that $20,000.

Saturday was the day for the AACA fall show. This show is always a great event but due to the amazing weather, this year’s show featured more than 1,200 cars with a one of the best displays of brass era cars we have seen in one place.

If all this was not enough, you also had the RM Sotheby’s auction at the nearby Hershel Lodge. This sale featured an extraordinary collection of classic cars on offer with our two favorites being a 1923 Duesenberg Model A Sports Phaeton and a 1931 Aston Martin 1 1/2 Litre International. Both sold for strong money, but we can dream can’t we? The Aston Martin sold for $280,500 and the Duesenberg for a very strong $374,000, so our dreams remain just that.

We felt that the best deal of the sale was a completely restored 1948 Allard L-type 4 seater that sold for a very reasonable $52,500.

Other strong performers were the 1965 VW type 2 21-window transporter that sold for $101,750. And then there was the unbelievably strong price of $231,00 paid for a 1915 Cretors Popcorn Wagon. We hope the new owner has a circus to make some of the money back.

Photos by Andy Reid