From 1990 to 2000, I drove Stardust up and down the South Jersey coast, from as far North as the Historic Town of Smithville (drove her to Oktoberfest every year) to Cape May. We took her on many trips to Ocean City, and a couple down to Wildwood. For a couple of years in a row we drove her to the Golden Inn in Avalon for New Year’s eve (they had a great big band). For a while I worked in Atlantic City and Margate, and drove her throughout there for work and to the gf’s house. She could be seen from the Black Horse Pike in Cardiff, parked out front until 1996; from ’96 to 2000 she was parked in my driveway in Northfield, and I often drove her to work at the Press of Atlantic City in Pleasantville. She was the official car of Stardust Productions, my traveling mystery theater company until 1997, when my ’56 Buick wagon took over that honor (mostly because she could haul more equipment). And yet, in all those years I never seemed to have a camera handy when I was out with Stardust. One of my biggest regrets is not taking more photos…of everything…in the ’80s and ’90s. In fact, some of the early photos you see on here, including the only photo I have of her before I did the bodywork, were taken by my friend Steve. Oh, to go back in time, to get a picture of Stardust in front of the Tom Cat diner in Wildwood, or Elaine’s Dinner Theater in Cape May, parked on the cobblestone streets of Smithville, or sitting by the lake at Birch Grove Park. If only.
When we moved to Florida, I was getting into the habit of buying disposable 35mm cameras. They were cheap and the pictures almost always came out good. Most of the photos on here from 2000-2003 are from those types of cameras. When decent digital cameras became available, I went that route, and took as many photos as they would hold. Of course now having a high-res camera and nearly unlimited storage a phone makes things much easier. Here are some photos of Stardust, taken in different places around South Florida from 2000-2020.
