More characters than a bar at midnight
Want good stories and interesting people, and cars too? Forget a
bar&emdash;go to a cruise
At the front gate of the cruise night, a guy trying to explain the
whole thing says, "at least it keeps us out of bars." Though, you
wonder if you'd ever have a chance of meeting such an eclectic group
in a bar.
The Rouge Valley chapter of the Antique and Classic Car Club of
Canada meets every second Sunday of the month; they gather in a local
lot, back their cars in, play old music, collect money for charities
like Children's Wish.
But mostly, they talk about their cars.
There's a story behind every car here. A fifty-one Pontiac that
originally belonged to the owner's father and has been driven ever
since. A '38 Buick that's been hauled in from down south, without the
radio that's taken four years to track down. (It's on its way,
finally.)
Going to one of these "cruises"&emdash;cruise being a misnomer
since there's no real cruising involved; "car parks" just doesn't
have the right ring&emdash;shows you just how far automotive
technology has come. Only a handful of the hundred cars have
seatbelts, and none of them have crash protection to speak of; one
two-tone vintage Ford has a rumble seat which, should you be in a
crash, would impale you on a big metal beam six inches from your
chest. Most of our four-bangers outmuscle the old V-8s present, too.
Then again, the small-block engines in the fifties' Chevys form
the building blocks for many of today's designs and many of today's
so-called performance cars would be hard-pressed to keep up with some
of the hot rods&emdash;heck, even some of the old Cadillacs&emdash;on
display.
Never mind styling. Bloated and inefficient as they may be, the
metal masterpieces on display hark back to an age where cars were
sketched by designers, not molded by wind tunnels. The shapes are
big, bold and expressive; colors swoop in and out of each other and
chrome is laid out by the acre.
Gorgeous details abound. Hydraulic struts hold up engine covers in
place of prop rods; door handles are real handgrips instead of flimsy
flaps. Trunks have separate shelves for full-size spare tires;
easy-to-use hydraulic jacks are used instead of our cumbersome
wrench-driven ones. One Bel Air has two antennas jutting from the
trunk, each nestled in a perfectly machined arrowhead. A gorgeous '57
Cadillac has its gas tank receptacle underneath a swing-up tail lamp.
The people that own these cars&emdash;and for the most part drive
them every day&emdash;have stories at least as interesting as their
cars'. Tam McDoom, a "professional auto finder," drove out to
Kingston on a moment's notice to pick up a vintage VW&emdash;"I had
to get there before the other guy," he explains. Bill Sherk, author
of The Way We Drove, is driving an orange Mercury that's almost
identical to the one he drove back in high school. He's actually
found that one, but it's sitting in pieces on the floor of a barn.
"Doing this instead," he says, "was easier." (His car, like many
others, doesn't have hubcaps; he explains that removing them used to
be the cheapest and easiest way to differentiate your car from your
parents'.)
People from all walks of life are here. Seventy-six year-old guys
that remember what they were driving fifty years ago. Teens in hot
rods. A woman and her daughter in a thirties Ford with C R TOY
stamped on the license plate. A group of people crammed into a
Packard that they've driven in from Niagara Falls.
Sounds like fun? The best part is that you can find meets like
this literally in your own backyard&emdash;there are dozens of ACCC
chapters across the country, and they run similar events all the
time; except for the $5-per-car charity donations asked for at the
bigger events, going to one is also free.
All of which makes cruises like this one about the cheapest,
closest, safest and most interesting automotive entertainment you can
find. Check one out&emdash;heck, all you might have to do is look
over your back fence.