Hagley Car Show Features Pickup Trucks

To purchase advance tickets to Hagley's Car Show, click here.

Join us Sunday, September 16, 2012, for the seventeenth annual Hagley Car Show. The show promises to bring back all of the family favorites enjoyed every year—a fabulous field of antique and classic automobiles—and a few new surprises to delight the crowd.

This year’s show feature is an American icon—the pickup truck. Legend has it that the inspiration for the pickup truck came from Down Under when an Australian farmer wrote to the head of Ford Australia in 1932 asking them to create a vehicle that could "take her family to church on Sunday and the pigs to market on Monday." Though that request did lead to the design of a utility vehicle with an enclosed cab and a utility bed, the reality is that earliest vehicles resembling today’s pickup trucks were produced for the military during World War I and that both Chevy and Dodge were producing pickup trucks for the public by 1918. This year’s feature section of the show field will include examples of these earliest American pickup trucks.

In addition to pickup trucks, the car show is expected to include nearly 600 classic vehicles from every era, video racing and pedal car course for the kids, a vintage juke box display, highlights from the newly catalogued Vinson Collection of Automotive History, a variety of food vendors, and the rock-and-roll music of earlier days spun by DJ Bob Burke.

If you want to get a good look at the show, or you just want to reminisce about last year’s wonderful event, visit www.myclassiccar.com, where you can see an entire episode of that popular show dedicated to the 2011 Hagley Car Show (season 16, episode 19).

Advance registration is required for vehicles to be in the show. If you have a vehicle that is at least twenty-five years old and you’re interested in displaying your car at the show, contact Diana Carre at (302) 658-2400, ext. 305, or dcarre@hagley.org.

Please do not bring pets to this event - service animals only.

Please note that museum exhibition buildings will not be open during the car show.

Special Offer - Hotel du Pont Package
In town for the Hagley Car Show? Hotel du Pont is offering a special package for Car Show visitors: the rate is $139 per night and includes continental breakfast and overnight valet (or self) parking. This offer will be available September 14 through 16. Reservations can be made by calling (302) 594-3125. www.hoteldupont.com

Hagley would like to thank the following sponsors for supporting our 2012 Hagley Car Show: Aircrafters,Inc.; Alderman Automotive Machine; Brandywine Region AACA; Chubb Insurance; Delaware Cadillac-Saab-Subaru; Edward J. Henry & Sons, Inc; Greenhill Car Wash; Homsey Architects, Inc.; Joe Feeney State Farm Insurance, Last Chance Garage; Weymouth, Swayze and Corroon Insurance, Inc.; and WSFS Bank.

Registration for this year's car show exhibitors is now closed. See you at the show!