58 vehicles at Bijou’s last Westside car show

       Several hundred people, 58 vehicles, live music, concessions and various vendors helped make the Westside's third and last Bijou School Car Show April 27 a memorable occasion.

A '67 Buick Riviera Wildcat (foreground), and other cars parked on the north side of the school.
Westside Pioneer photo

       The number of cars was “10 short of last year, but we had a lot of positive feedback,” said Dave Fisher, security officer for the alternative high school and the event's founder/organizer. “We did real well.”
       The reason it's the last show on the Westside is that Bijou is relocating after this school year from the old Whittier site at 2904 W. Kiowa St. to what's now Wasson High, where it will be part of a new grouping of alternative programs.

Randy Queen and his recently purchased 1929 Model A truck.
Westside Pioneer photo

       Fisher himself will be retiring, but still hopes to have another car show at Wasson in 2014 and perhaps find someone else to carry the event on, he said.
       The owners of the 58 vehicles paid a fee, as did the vendors. Concessions were also sold. Those proceeds (not yet tabulated) will be used to give a scholarship to this year's top Bijou graduate, Fisher said.
       As in past years, the vehicles displayed April 27 were chiefly older models that have been restored to their original appearance or customized. They were parked in the gravel areas on the north and west sides of the campus.
       One of the vehicles was a 1929 Model A truck, recently purchased by car-repair hobbyist Randy Queen, a Holland Park resident. The vehicle has been in the same local family since it was new, and they have kept it restored. In buying the truck, Queen pledged to the family not to alter its original appearance. “If I had said I would chop it [customize it], they wouldn't have sold it to me,” he said.
       With just a four-foot-long bed, the truck is noticeably smaller than modern pickups. It also doesn't have a heater. But Queen has no complaints. “I've always liked old, old trucks,” he said.

Westside Pioneer article