Echo Park - Gray Parade

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Echo Park CA, December 14 2019 - After a million miles of classic car cruising, we finally got the chance to drive in a parade. Ed (The Car Guy) Levitt is the long time car runner for the annual Echo Park Community Parade – he was shy one convertible for hauling the roster of “government celebrities” featured on the day. It doesn’t take much for an excuse to pull out the old iron and put the top down in the middle of December. Los Angeles is great on all such points. On this day however, overcast skies dimmed the color a bit – a gray backdrop but no rain to spoil.

While Ed claimed the top job of driving legendary US Congressman Adam Schiff, we drove his colleague Jimmy Gomez – verry slowly along the Sunset Boulevard route. He never tired of wishing the crowd Happy Holidays – Merry Christmas. Echo Park is the most amazing community – the old LA look of the town is deserving of a parade. It was interesting to hear Jimmy G. recount his days of living near, and his account of which businesses had changed along the way since last year. This was his 4th trip in this parade.

1962 Chevrolet Impala

Our ride was a ripening cherry 1965 Chevrolet Impala picked from Canada. As nice as that gets, we still had collector car envy (a crazy but good condition) over several of the following cars in the parade lineup. Our Chev’s older brother showed up – a beauty-full red 1962 Impala (also originally from Canada). The 1959 Cadillac convertible survivor from the Automobile Driving Museum made the biggest impression on us - literally.

1959 Lincoln Continental

1962 Ford Falcon convertible

1954 Oldsmobile 88

1955 Ford Thunderbird

1959 Cadillac Series 62 convertible

1968 Pontiac Bonneville

1965 Chevrolet Impala

Being at the front of the line, we missed the post parade throng of classic cars that followed. Next year we’re going to sit and wait until the very end. If we get invited!