Chevrolet Bel Air

Their purpose? To participate in an automobile trade show!

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation today launched “Personal Tributes,” a digital repository which will highlight tributes created in response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and February 26th, 1993. “Personal Tributes” is an extension of the “Story Builder” digital archive which the Foundation launched in January. The Foundation will showcase the inaugural personal tribute, a custom-built 1957 Chevy Bel-Air with the World Trade Center etched into the back window, at the Atlantic City Classic Car Show on February 24th and 25th, 2006.

And here, Gretchen Dykstra struggles with the indignity:

“Our website will give voice to the thousands of people who created personal tributes, highlighting the decorated automobiles, motorcycles, flags, handmade quilts, murals, and tattoos. Through ‘Story Builder’ and ‘Personal Tributes,’ we are forming a comprehensive historical record which will honor the story of September 11th. We hope that people around the world will log-on to www.buildthememorial.org to share their own photographs of tributes and to view others,” Dykstra said.

Features include:

 632 C.I.D. highly-modified Big Block Chevy engine

 High performance 4L80E transmission, with custom manual shift valve body with overdrive

 Narrowed Ford 9-inch rear axle with strange axles and center section, braced housing with 456 gear ratio

 Custom red, white and blue pearl paint by Dupont with silver pearl metallic stars on front end, custom fiberglass tilt nose which opens and closes automatically by compressed air

 Customized etching of the World Trade Center detailed by hand and finished in gold metal flake with frosted accents dedicated to the memory of the 9/11

In seriousness, and with all due respect to Aldo McCoy of Brick, N.J., whose customization of this car mirrors the many personal remembrances of Sept. 11 so many made in the helpless-feeling aftermath of the attacks: Doesn't it seem as though personal tributes have their meaning precisely because they are personal? Done on a small scale, and liable to pop up anywhere--like in Brick, N.J.? Something about bringing the show to Atlantic City seems wrong.

(Full press release after the jump.)  read more »