Trillium Ford hosts first annual All-Wheels Show and Shine

Written By Brian Lockhart

The weather was perfect for a car show when Trillium Ford Shelburne hosted it's first annual All-Wheels Show & Shine on Saturday, June 17.

The Highway 89 dealership invited anyone with a special car or truck to participate in the show and bring their special ride to the event. Around 150 vehicles of all types were on display.

For families, there was a face painter, live music, treats, and a magic show.

There were eight trophy classes for cars entered in the show, including People's Choice, Truck, Muscle, Import, Special Interest, Classic, Ford, and Best in Show.

“We invited everybody,” explained dealership owner Len Rice. “Doesn't matter if it's Ford, GM, or Chevy – everyone is welcome. It's just to show their wheels. There's a lot of muscle cars here. I guess because we're a Ford dealership, there's a lot of Mustangs here. That era of cars seems to be very popular. There's a real good variety here. We have some of our new cars as well.”

The dealership plans to make the Show and Shine an annual event. They had two new all-electric Ford vehicles on display – the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the ultra-powerful Ford F-150 Lightning.

“We've had a really good turnout today, and the day has been beautiful,” Len said. “This is our first annual, we'll have it again. It's for awareness as well as a customer appreciation event for after-COVID. It's a chance for our employees to get together with everyone else. It brings the community together.”

Several hundred people visited the show throughout the day and enjoyed seeing the cars and voting on their favourite.

Event organizer and Trillium Ford marketing manager Wendy Gabrek adds, “We'd specifically like to thank Spanky's Food Truck, Steve Baker Magician, Funny Faces by Mel and our band ‘The Curling Stones' for adding to our special day. Thank you as well to everyone who donated to the Shepherd's Cupboard Food Bank of Shelburne. We collected a thousand pounds of food and $1,260 for this very worthy local cause. This is our first annual event and we've learned a lot. Next year we'll have handi-capable parking, more people on the registration desk, although Deb and Linda did a fabulous job, and we'll add a line to the in-dash displays so we know where everyone came from out of interest,” said Gabrek.

During the closing ceremonies, the winners of the car show were announced:

Classic – Ed Bowen, 1956 Mercury Montclair #50. 

Ford – Ralph Ball, 2012 Ford F-150 Custom #97. 

Import – Rob Azzpardi, 1991 Nissan D2100 #06.

Truck – Koby Bye, 1978 Freightliner WFT #63. 

Special Interest – Paul Waechter, 1977 International Harvester Scout Terra #16. 

Muscle – Matthew Demelo, 1965 Shelby Cobra # 119. 

People's Choice – Mike Yates, 2014 Ford Mustang #61 (with 78 votes cast). Note: He won by three votes, with Jim Reive's 1932 Ford B in a close second. 

Best In Show – Steve Leite, 1967 Chevrolet Camero #109.