Car owners started showing up on the campus of Pacific University shortly after sunrise this morning, where Rotarian Tim Pearson and other volunteers from the Forest Grove Rotary Club directed them to their respective staging areas.

By John Schrag/Pamplin Media Group

FOREST GROVE, Ore. – Some of the car owners on the campus of Pacific University today wrote big checks to take possession of the prized automobiles they are showing. Others, like Stephen Radford, have put countless hours of elbow grease into their vehicles.

Radford, of Troutdale, inherited his father’s 1959 Triumph TR3A in 2001. The British sports car, which his dad had bought in the 1980s, looked more like a candidate for the scrap yard than an entry in one of the most prestigious car shows on the West Coast.

But last fall, 20 years after he received his “inheritance,” Radford had the car running and restored and when he heard that the Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance was back after a two-year COVID hiatus, he decided to enter.

Early Sunday morning, he fired it up and headed west.

“It was the first time I had it on I-84,” said Radford, who admits he was a bit nervous, so headed out very early to avoid traffic. But the car made it and will join about 300 others.

While many of the vehicles have been displayed before, Radford isn’t the only first-time entrant. Tony Aylward’s 1940 Ford Deluxe Business Coupe, which he purchased from someone in Ohio, is making its West Coast debut. The Beaverton resident said the car had a lifetime of good care and boast the original components it had when it rolled off the assembly line at Dearborn, Michigan.

Gates to the event opened at 8:30 a.m. and the show will run to 4:30, at which time a parade of gleaming vehicles will roll out of town. Radford is already thinking about that traffic.

“I’m thinking I’ll take the backroads to Troutdale this afternoon,” he says.

Show Details:
Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance
Sunday, July 17, Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon

Tickets: $8-$20. Free for children 12 and under

https://forestgroveconcours.org/attend

Gates open at 8:30 a.m. Trophy presentations begin at 1:30 p.m. with the Best Show award at 4 p.m.