62nd International Meet Sept 23-26 2026

[Chartrain]

The 62nd International Meet will be held from September 23-26 in Waxahachie Texas. This location is 30 minutes south of Dallas in a charming & historic city. The court house is the most photographed in the state as are the gingerbread houses
The physical location is the Civic Center where all events will take place save for a meet & greet sponsored by the city & held in a local park.
Hotels are on the same site so walking distance to all events
plenty of RV & camping is also available nearby
We are currently negotiating with hotels & will have reservations available for booking in January
a departure from the norm will be a Saturday awards banquet
This was done to appease the vendors who find Saturday a waste of time when everyone leaves that morning. We will also be opening it to the public along with a general car show that day
Several can't miss venues will also be offered to Dallas, Fort Worth & Waco along with a vintage car cruise.
our brothers from the Antique Studebaker Club will be joining with us for this event.
This will be only the 3rd time Texas has hosted the meet. It's a great opportunity for our west coast friends to join in.
much more to follow as we get closer but it's still only 10 months away

[M-Webb]

Cool. But why is the event not just open to the public every day? Seems like a good opportunity for some Studebaker marketing, or missed opportunity I guess.

[Dwight FitzSimons]

Cool. But why is the event not just open to the public every day? Seems like a good opportunity for some Studebaker marketing, or missed opportunity I guess.

Perhaps because they would have to charge the general public a fee in order to cover the costs of holding the meet. But, then, SDC members would/could simply claim to be "part of the general public" and get in free.

But, you do make a valid point. General public people could be charged a small fee to get in. But, then again, SDC members would/could simply claim to be "part of the general public" and get in cheap. Naaah, Studebaker people wouldn't be cheap, would they?
--Dwight

[M-Webb]

So they limit the public exposure so as to protect the event from potential abuse by our own members? That seems like some kind of problem for sure.

Car shows of all types have figured out how to charge both the participants and general spectators from every angle possible to make money and still be successful. Goodguys in particular. So not sure why the SDC couldn't follow a similar model. And yes, Goodguys charges both and plenty of both still seem to want to go to the events, and I am guessing they make a fair amount of money of them. Ironically, the Goodguys stores are now all history, but the cars shows still live on. Does the SDC actually make any money off these events or is it just barely enough to break even every year for the most part? If you are making at least some money, then the tendency is to thrive and grow. If they are just breaking even every year, then it is just 1 year at a time and if people are aging out and it is hard to get new people in, then the inevitable is bound to happen. The SDC might need to get a bit more proactive in reaching out and inviting the general public into an event like this to get more positive exposure to people who might potentially be interested in getting a Studebaker some day and becoming new members. Keeping this event more or less a closed door private event it maybe not the best thing for the future survival of it.

But I am no expert on any of it to be honest. I have only ever went to one which was in Sacramento back in 2004 I think it was. I had only recently owned my first ever Studebaker truck by then and just noticed the event happening so just drove to it on a Sat. Didn't register for it or anything like that that I recall. Just went, checked things out, chatted with some nice people and then just drove back home. I had assumed it was open to the public the whole time to be honest, didn't know any better. But anyway, it should be that easy for anyone to just go check it out. Why restrict people from checking out the show, seems like a really bad policy given how things are trending in the hobby.

I have not been to another show since, mostly because of travel distances and timing. I tried hard to get my truck running this year to make it to PA, but wasn't able to. I am definitely trying to make it to this one in TX. But I'll be honest, I'd be a lot more interested if it was more open to the public so more people would be there.

Also, couple more thoughts while on the subject. The timing of the events makes it hard for people with kids especially, which I know isn't a lot of our members currently. But it is for myself who still have kids at home. Having it in the Fall AFTER Summer is over makes it a lot more challenging. I was going to try to go to PA this year with my daughter who is now 16 and still in high school. One of the reasons I gave up, besides the truck just not going to be ready, was that she was going to have to miss too much school for use to make the trip together. If it was a Summer event, that would not have been a problem. Same for anyone on the younger side of things with the same problem, or grandkids too for older people.

Also, I don't know what the food situation is at these events in general. I don't recall the Sacramento event having any food vendors, but maybe they did, not sure. But in any case, one way for the event to be more attractive to people to want to pay to get in is to have good food vendors and to charge them an fee to do it so the event can make money that way too. And TX has good food, would be a shame to not have at least a few good food trucks there catering to the event.

I'm not trying to rock the boat with this, but maybe there are some ways the events coming up can be restructured to make these a lot more appealing for people to not only want to go, but even just be able to and make these better events all the way around.

1. Open it up more to the public, and actually market it to that as well
2. Change the timing to a Summer time event
3. Have good food trucks

One last and maybe further off the wall idea, maybe also open up a section of the event to participants with other non-Studebaker, but not brand X vehicles. Interesting and off beat symbiotic type vehicles, ie Nash/Ramblers, Hudsons, Kaisers, Powell pickup trucks, etc. Maybe by submission and pre-approval only to help keep it from just whatever. Have a new section area for those folks to be able to help grow it some, get some foot traffic through the door and generate a bit more $'s.

Just some thoughts. Regardless, I am going to try my best to get my truck back to running and driving for a road trip down to TX next year. But it will likely just be myself as my daughter probably still won't be able to make it with me unfortunately.