Convertibles request for Saint Patrick's Parade

I've got a 2004 360 Spider. When asking for a convertible, you're not expecting the passenger to be sitting up on the back deck, right?

 

Ok, sounds good. Keep me in the loop please.

 

Sounds like fun. The Dallas area Italian Car Club of the Southwest use to participate in the Dallas St. Patrick's Day parade and here are my observations to consider.

Negatives:
1) Walking pace of parade maybe hard on clutches.
2) Slow pace may increase risk of overheating if your car does not do well in stop and go traffic.
3) Sometimes the people along the sides of the parade throw beads at the people in the car, especially if there are pretty women in the back. They can miss their targets and the beads hit the car. Some owners may not want to risk paint work with small metals beads hitting paint. Maybe if you had a Mustang convertible or something like that.
4) Expect the unexpected. Someone threw my 11 year old son a jello shot.

Positives:
5) Good exposure / publicity for your club
6) Lots of pretty women in the crowd.
7) Can be for a good cause?
8) We had a great club lunch together after we ran the route, enjoyed the spring weather.

The Dallas parade draws a very big crowd and we had to meet early and wait several hours for our time to join the route. The best comment I heard was from someone in the crowd who said he had never seen so many Fiat's running at the same time... Here is a photo from several years ago of my car and another member of the club.

Regards,

Jeff
Dallas, Texas
1994 Alfa Romeo 164 LS
1977 Fiat 124 spider
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Those look like excellent solutions to the various issues. Our club had a great time when we participated years ago and we did get a lot of positive exposure. We dropped out eventually as participation had declined to around 8 to 10 cars and also the cost of entry had effectively doubled.

For our small club, it was a big expense that only a few were participating in. However it was something that my son and his friends will remember always. How often does one get to ride in a parade!

Best of luck to you and have fun.

Jeff
Dallas, Texas

 

How does one acquire the title of parade Marshall?

 

Don't know....but then again Tex had a recent WANTED thread for knee pads.

 

Will you be parading in your yellow GTB BigTex? She is a beauty.

 

There is a Houston chapter of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club and you can reach out to them to see if any want to participate. I do not have an email address but I found this contact information on the national AROC website.

Chapter Contacts-Alfa Romeo Owners Club USA

Best of luck!

Jeff