The Carlisle events can be somewhat frustrating to those that attend. It is not uncommon for the same cars to win every year in a grouping within a marque. Add to that a marque that was a limited production edition similar to our Crossfires, and it begins to look that a "clique" is influencing the voting. Not to point a finger at anyone; just sort of the way it is & has evolved.
I attended 3 years ago with my 2007 Limited Coupe. I really didn't intend to win a trophy, plaque or whatever, but wanted to meet other Crossfire owners and look at the cars. And not just ours - Crossfires typically sit on the showfield directly across from the Vipers and I could get overwhelmed looking at Vipers up close.
Anyway, I ended up winning a 3rd Place Carlisle award for my 2007. My personal opinion - my nearly pristine, factory fresh 2007 XFire was much better looking than others in my class. But then again, I'm somewhat prejudiced!
What I found really interesting was the many times I had to explain to other Crossfire Owners attending that particular Carlisle show that my Machine Gray Crossfire was an OEM color! Nearly everyone there was positive I had repainted the car. And I'm sure several thought I was "fibbing" when I said it hadn't been. Kind of amazed me how so-called knowledgeable Crossfire Owners didn't really know that much. And I was the only Machine Gray Crossfire attending that show!
Years back, I owned Merkur XR4Ti's - had three of them in my driveway. All fully operational & able to go anywhere on a roadtrip reliably. And not many of my fellow XR4Ti Owners could make that claim. And at the Carlisle Ford Nationals, it was fairly widely understood that the same Owners won every year in their respective classes. And we would typically have 150-200 Merkurs attending under one club membership. You would see several hundred Mustangs on the showfield but they were split up into a dozen or so car clubs. Different cars would win every year. Kind of interesting!
And that Merkur Car Club of America (MCCA) took home the top attending car club trophy for 8 years running (I think; could have been 7 years running). Now that is a car owners group fully committed to an annual showfield event. The year our string was broken, the Ford Fairlanes of America held their national gathering in Carlisle that year. And they only beat the MCCA group by 2 cars!