American Graffiti stars head to Abbotsford; also, custom cars

Where were you in ’73?

If you lived anywhere in the Free World, chances are you were watching George Lucas’ seminal coming-of-age film, American Graffiti.

Set in the late summer of 1962, Lucas’ film explored adolescent angst (and car culture) in a radically new way. It treated teenagers as real people, made us care about what happened to them, and introduced us to a group of friends and lovers as diverse as any group of white people ever could be, at least in the New Frontier.

Filmed only a decade after the era it portrays, American Graffiti not only turned nostalgia into a tangible commodity, it compressed the amount of time needed to feel nostalgic. Still, 10 years has never seemed such a yawning chasm, and on its 40^th anniversary the film is a stark reminder of what was lost—or gained, depending on how you look at it—during the turmoil of the later 1960s.

Showcasing a number of future stars at the beginning of their careers, the film features Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Suzanne Sommers, and Mackenzie Philips as well as three actors who will be heading to our neck of the woods this weekend—Paul LeMat, Candy Clark, and Bo Hopkins.

LeMat, you may recall, played coolest-of-the-cool John Milner, the hot-rodder with a yellow deuce coupe, and Hopkins was Pharaoh Joe, the J.D. who takes Richard Dreyfuss on a wild ride. Clark was Debbie, the sassy party girl with a bouffant and a heart of gold. A platinum vision in blue gingham—was there a red-blooded male alive who didn’t have a crush on her?

This weekend, all three will be appearing at the B.C. Classic and Custom Car Show at the Tradex Convention Centre in Abbotsford, where they’ll sign autographs and meet fans. For any American Graffiti fan, it’ll be a rare treat.

Oh, there’ll also be some custom cars there, too, as well as legendary customizers Gene Winfield and George Barris (builder of the original TV Batmobile), the Hot Rod Hotties, motorcycles, a show-and-shine, and something called the Nitro Madness Dragster Cacklefest.