AACA judging

The NJ Region of the AACA will hold its annual car show (officially known as the “Spring Meet”) this year on Sunday, May 3, in Denville, NJ. Because this is a judged event, the club is always looking for volunteer judges, and in 2024, the Region launched a new initiative, when it expanded the number of judges’ training sessions in the months prior to the show. This initiative continued through 2025 and into 2026. (The Reinas hosted twice, breakfast in 2024 and lunch in 2025.)

On Saturday March 28, this year’s second judging seminar was hosted by former Region President Greg R and his wife June. Several dozen club members attended the session, again ably run by Craig, our current President and Chief Judge. Greg has a nice assortment of AACA-eligible vehicles at his home, and several were utilized as the group reviewed the NJ Region’s judging criteria. For our Spring Meet, all cars will be judged on a forty-point scale, with a maximum of ten points awarded each for exterior, interior, engine compartment, and undercarriage. The judges will be looking for a first, second, and third place winner in each class (ties are not allowed).

The group gathers around Greg’s ’76 deVille.

Greg points as he instructs us to not point in front of the owners

More discussion around that engine compartment

Greg’s 1976 Cadillac sedan deVille was an excellent example of a well-preserved, mostly original car that most casual onlookers would consider to be close to perfect. However, AACA rules dictate that cars are judged based on how close they are to the condition they would have been in at new car delivery. While the paint on the Caddy was near perfect, and nothing in the engine compartment appeared non-original, the A/C compressor had recently been replaced, and a fine layer of dirt blanketed everything under the hood. The interior, while clean, showed some normal wear on those areas of frequent contact, and the undercarriage was described as “looking like a used car that has had some miles put on it”. The real teaching lesson? While each of these observations would warrant a deduction, on a scale of one-to-ten, the deductions might only account for a few points. In other words, an otherwise original engine compartment is not going to lose nine out of ten points for being “dirty”.

1976 was the last year before GM shrunk its full-size cars

The group also got a look at Bob’s BMW 6-series coupe, a German model that we don’t often see at our shows. It was a good contrast when compared to the big Cadillacs. After about two hours of fresh air, it was time to regroup inside to enjoy the real reason for attending: lunch. Our host couple had our meal catered by a local Italian restaurant, and that included chicken, meatballs, and salad. Several guests brought dessert, and with that, another successful training session was concluded.

As they did last year, the Bettles of Florham Park hosted around two dozen members of the NJ Region of the AACA at their home for a seminar on the finer points of show car judging. There were several twists compared to 2024. First, the family 2000 Saturn station wagon is now, at twenty-five years of age, AACA-eligible, so it was moved into the garage and used as the target vehicle. And in addition to the vehicular judging, a separate seminar was conducted upstairs on the administrative side of the judging juggernaut.

Our Regional V.P. Craig, as he did last year, assumed Chief Judge duties while we wait for a dear Regional member to recover from an extended illness. Craig had this to say at the end of the technical session: “… repetition of the discussion of what and how to judge is always beneficial for judges. My eyes were opened a bit because judging the engine compartment of a car only 25 years old car is not the same as judging a 60- or 90-year-old engine compartment…. There’s a lot of technology stuffed under the hood, and … recognizing authentic is a lot more complicated now.”

Is it all original? How is a judge to know?

Meanwhile, yours truly helped oversee the administrative brainstorming, which focused on doing a better job of keeping the registration line moving, accurately identifying which cars belong in which class, and ensuring that those cars are correctly parked in those classes. The biggest issue will be the tallying of the scores. The Region has 17 AACA classes, plus classes for modifieds and moderns. Each class potentially has a 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winner. Within the space of three hours or less, the entire judging team must correctly identify up to sixty trophy winners, based on numerical scores assigned by the team.

Craig and I agreed that the biggest takeaway of the day was the greater number of Regional members who expressed a willingness to volunteer on show day. At the conclusion of the separate meetings, we all headed toward the kitchen for a delicious self-serve lunch of ham, lasagna, meatballs, sausage and peppers, and dessert. As our President Paul has pointed out more than once, we get a better turnout at these things when food is involved!