The 2025 Hillsborough, NJ Memorial Day Parade

May 27, 2025 RichardReina Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Jr., Drives, Events Hillsborough NJ Memorial Day Parade

The town of Hillsborough, NJ, holds a Memorial Day parade every year, and the NJ Region of the AACA has actively participated in recent years. This year’s parade was held on Saturday, May 24, 2025, and for once we had the weather on our side. The car count was close to twenty (including some late-model Mustangs), and the parade concluded as it does every year at the town’s Municipal Building. Most vehicle owners elected to stay for the informal car show behind the Municipal Building, which gave us an excuse to hang out and chat.

Vehicles were as old as a 1930 Chrysler (Craig’s 1929 LaSalle made an appearance but had to bail due to a fuel leak), with a strong showing of 1950s-era automobiles. My Alfa Romeo was the only non-domestic vehicle in the parade, but drew favorable comments from some of the residents who lined the streets. (I’ve always strongly felt that “the American way” includes the freedom of choice to own and drive the car of your choice, no matter the country of origin.)

Hillsborough is a large town with a significant Indian and Asian population. I’ve made this observation in the past and I’ll make it again: there is something incredibly moving about seeing so many people who obviously immigrated here (or were born to immigrant parents) waving American flags and coming out to celebrate such an important American holiday. This is why I elect to take so many photos of the parade observers. They are the fabric of our nation.

DRIVERS (and puppies) GET THEIR INSTRUCTIONS

BOB EXPLAINS WHY “SEDAN” SOMETIMES MEANS “WAGON”

THE VIEW FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT

1962 CADILLAC ELDORADO CONVERTIBLE

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE MUSTANGS

1930 CHRYSLER

WAYNE’S 1952 HUDSON

EVEN THE BATMOBILE (WITH BATGIRL) SHOWED UP

AMERICANS:

NJ-AROC Monthly Breakfast, Bordentown, NJ, May 18, 2025

May 18, 2025 RichardReina Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Jr., Drives, Events Jimmy's American Grill, NJ-AROC

Beautiful Sunday morning weather on May 18, 2025, brought out fifteen Alfisti driving nine different Alfa Romeos to our monthly breakfast at Jimmy’s American Grill in Bordentown, NJ. Four classic Spiders, a Giulia coupe, and a Giulia sedan covered the pre-1994 segment, while a Giulia Quadrifoglio, a Stelvio, and a 4C represented the modern Alfas. I must hand it to the members of the NJ Chapter of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club (NJ-AROC): we own (and drive) a nice variety of Italian cars!

Jimmy’s doesn’t open until 9 a.m., so we hung out in the parking lot until about fifteen after the hour before entering. Once inside, we had plenty of choices from their brunch menu. The service was great, and as usual, we coerced our server into taking a few group shots of the table. After the bill was paid and we spilled back into the parking lot, conversations continued, as they tend to when car guys and gals are involved.

These monthly breakfasts are a great tradition that has been ongoing for well over a year, and personally, I would love to see greater participation from the club members. We purposely vary the diner location each month (we are presently rotating among four diners throughout the state) so no matter where a member might live, the opportunity to join us is there. It was also great to drive my ’67 GT 1300 Junior in nice weather. The car ran well, and I have at least three more events for this month alone, so I’m looking forward to more miles in that driver’s seat.

Moving Away from Strict Originality, Part Two

May 11, 2025 RichardReina Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Jr., Events, Repair sessions Alfa Romeo Owners Club, Rust-Oleum Professional Spray Paint

There is a balance that’s required, when you own, as I do, a national award-winning car that has been so feted for its preservation. Much has been written in the last decade or more about the importance to the collector car hobby of the unrestored car, which has given birth to the cliché, “they’re only original once.” At the same time, cars which are driven (I have put over 14,000 miles on mine) will require, like any vehicle, routine service and repair. I wrote earlier about my decision, twelve years into the ownership of this wonderful Alfa Romeo, to move away from strict originality, not in a haphazard or indifferent way, but slowly and deliberately, and only to make improvements for the sake of appearance or functionality without unduly disturbing that which should be saved.

I thought about this again when in March, my wife and I hosted an AACA judging seminar at our home. My Alfa, standing in as a subject car for training purposes, was actually lauded for its “clean” engine bay. I know from attending numerous judging schools that AACA has high standards for engine compartments. Entering an AACA-eligible car in a national meet will ensure that several sets of trained eyes will focus on everything under your hood from firewall to radiator. While the average citizen defines “car detailing” as vacuuming the interior, waxing the paint, and cleaning the windows, AACA members know that in addition to those needs, the engine compartment must look like the day the car was driven off the new car dealer’s lot.

But I have accepted for too long that the Alfa’s engine and the bay within which it resides are “original, and therefore, not to be touched.” That has been changing, and most recently, my critical gaze fell up the quite unsightly air cleaner canister. It sits on the driver’s side of the car, over the exhaust manifold, and connects to the intake plenum via a rubber-and-cloth hose that passes over the valve cover. Mine is black, and it has been obvious to me since the day I took possession of the car that the canister had been repainted, possibly more than once, by a previous owner, most likely Pete, who owned the car from 1968 to 2013. To put it bluntly, the repaint was poor quality, with visible drips and runs. The black had also chipped off in several places. Frankly, it was one of the least attractive components under the hood. It was time to rectify that. Given that the canister had already been repainted at least once, I felt no qualms about stripping it down to the metal. There was nothing original to be saved.

Before I even removed the canister, I went to the national website of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club (AROC), where, as a member, I could access technical assistance. I emailed a Club volunteer who specializes in Alfas of the 1960s, and asked him what the air cleaner canister’s original finish looked like. He responded within twenty-four hours to say that the factory finished the canisters in semi-gloss black. (This was the first time I used this online technical service, and it’s a great perk of club membership.) Off to Lowe’s I went.

This was going to be a rattle-can job, which does not automatically mean “sub-standard.” I’ve had great success with the Professional line of Rust-Oleum spray paints, so I picked up a can of primer and a can of semi-gloss black. Out came the canister, which I doused with chemical stripper. Given the multiple coats of paint on the thing, this required several applications. Once I removed as much paint as possible with that method, I resorted to mechanical stripping with a 3M plastic abrasive wheel. The canister was down to bare metal, so I wiped everything with paint prep, and waited for a windless day to spray outside.

The primer went on smoothly and thoroughly, and it appeared that one coat would be enough. Next was the semi-gloss black, which had to be sprayed in stages as I rotated the canister for complete coverage. Two coats looked like plenty, and I saw no evidence of drips or runs. I gave the parts twenty-four hours to dry, and reinstalled the canister.

The improvement in the engine bay’s appearance was immediately obvious. If you look closely enough, you can probably tell that it was spray-painted, but to my eye, it looks sharp. My only concern, and it’s not a substantial one at the moment, is that exhaust manifold heat may cause the paint to flake. If it does, it will be the canister’s bottom, well out of sight of show-goers (and judges). If and when that happens, I’ll deal with it. In the meantime, a few hours of simple work, and $20 worth of hardware store paint, has yielded a nice upgrade to the Alfa’s engine compartment.

BEFORE

You can see the rough surface, runs, and paint chips throughout the component.

DURING

First, the chemical stripping.

The remainder of the paint was removed with the 3M plastic abrasive wheel.

The primer coat.

The top coat of semi-gloss black.

AFTER

Once reinstalled, the canister looks much improved. For the most part, only the top lid is visible.

NJ Region AACA Spring Meet, May 2025

May 5, 2025 RichardReina Car shows, Events Annual Spring Meet, NJ Region AACA

Which cliché do you prefer? “Wait ‘til next year.” “We can’t control the weather.” “The show must go on.” “It is what it is.” “This is how we’ve always done it.” Frankly, I am out of explanations why the NJ Region of the AACA continues to remain locked onto the first Sunday in May as the day for our biggest and only official car show of the year, and does not consider a rain date. A little background: for as long as anyone can remember, this show, formally called the Spring Meet, had been held in the vast parking lot of the Automatic Switch Company in Florham Park. There was an understanding that the lot was there for the club’s use every year. In fact, I knew of the show (colloquially called “Automatic Switch”) years before I joined AACA. But 2015 was our last year there, as the company shuttered operations in the U.S. and moved offshore.

The scramble was on for a new location, and the Mennen Arena in nearby Morristown, an indoor sports venue, was selected. One issue was that we would be sharing the lot with people attending events at the Arena. The lot also was completely covered with solar panels, seen as an advantage should it be hot and sunny, as the panels would provide shade. This brings up the next issue: We were at the Mennen Arena for four years, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, and it rained every year. The panels became a source of water dripping on our cars and ourselves.

COVID meant no shows for 2020 and 2021, but for 2022, we had a new location: a school parking lot in Denville. It was sunny that year and we had a decent turnout, but the lot was not visible from any highway, and I think the club wanted the possibility of “drop-in” attendees and spectators from those who were driving by. In 2023, for the first time, we used a car dealer’s lot. Nielsen Dodge on Route 10 in East Hanover agreed to host, which meant that dealer personnel spent all of Saturday evening moving cars from their front lot to provide room for us. The weather that year was sunny, and we had a such a good show that all parties agreed to return for 2024, which may have been the wettest Spring Meet I’ve ever attended. For 2025, the Nielsen franchise wanted to share the wealth, so they offered us the lot at their Ford dealer in Morristown (which is not located on a major thoroughfare). That show was yesterday, May 4, 2025, and it rained again.

I heard an unofficial count of 33 show cars on the ground (including my Alfa, which I drove in the wet last year as well). In its heyday at Automatic Switch, I was told that the Region could regularly attract over 200 cars. The lower turnout can also be partially attributed to competition from an increased number of local car shows, and I will cite a lack of venue consistency (The Ford dealer is the fourth different locale in the last ten years) which may keep non-members and spectators away. Still, there cannot be anyone involved with the NJ Region who sees this as a successful trend. My personal suggestion would be to find a lot that does not involve moving automotive inventory, and schedule the show for a Saturday, with the following day as a rain date. There will be a postmortem at our June meeting. It should be an interesting discussion.

By mid-morning, some rows were filling in

Let me bring up some happy news about this year’s show. Regional members who volunteered to work the event were there in droves. I want to especially call out Chairperson Pete, Registration Chair Vince, Chief Judge Craig, Sarah at Registration, Trophy Chair Jerry, all 16 (!) volunteer judges, and the Admin Team who tallied the results. There were many other helping hands. The conditions on the ground did nothing to dampen the effort and enthusiasm they brought to the day.

Oh, and there were cars! I dodged raindrops to photograph as many as I could. Scroll down below to see the vehicles driven to the event by the brave souls who refused to let a little moisture dissuade them from participating.