Vintage cars aplenty at Old Car Day in Red Oak Aug. 17
Nick Johansen
The Red Oak Express
Old Car Day will return to Fountain Square Park later this month.
This year’s Old Car Day will be held on Aug. 17. Participants in the car show will be entering their vehicles throughout the morning. Classis Chassis Car Club President Gary Thoren said the annual event has been taking place since 1976, pre-dating the Classy Chassis Car Club. Until 1981, it was known as Model A days, exclusively showing Model A cars, before changing its format to what it is today.
“The classes were similar. It was an all-day event in earlier years. They would start registration at the fairgrounds, register cars until noon, and then travel around the square in a parade, before returning to the fairgrounds and parking by classes. The parade helped get everyone in order,” said Thoren.
In the evening, they would open up the fair building for a meal and live music. Thoren said the cost of the meal and other factors led to the show being moved to Fountain Square Park in the early 1980s, where it has been located ever since. The format change, plus additional car shows being added to other communities led to a few issues with attendance.
“After the format change, and with so many other car shows, the car count did drop significantly for years. The past several years, we’ve drawn over 200. We hit 280 a couple of years ago, and that was the biggest show we’ve had in 25 years,” said Thoren.
He added there are a few new changes being added to this year’s Old Car Day.
“We’ve added a new class, for vintage campers. We haven’t adjusted our classes for awhile, so we have done some combining and shifting to our classes to make them more even, so there aren’t 35 cars in one class, and two in another. We haven’t made any big changes, nor a lot of changes, but we have done some tweaking.”
This year, there will be 33 classes, including stock classes for cars ranging from 1900 to present, modified cars from 1900 to present, stock and modified pickups, muscle cars, and sports cars. There will be 14 awards handed out to winners in the car show, which will be decided by the public. Ballots are given out per car starting at noon, when registration closes.
“This allows us to keep track of ballots. We don’t hand out ballots at registration, because we would have people show up at 8 a.m., vote, and then person who arrives at 11:30 a.m. wouldn’t be considered,” commented Thoren.
Participants in the car show, Thoren said, aren’t limited to car owners in and around Red Oak.
“I registered a person last year from Illinois, and I see a lot of people from Carroll. We’ve had car owners from Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas as well.”
Thoren’s personal favorite is an unmodified stock vehicle, and he appreciates mostly all cars, while Classy Chassis Chairman Jim Stanley prefers custom and modified vehicles.
Thoren said after ballots are received, they will work quickly to count the ballots and determine the results.
“We’re going to start counting the ballots earlier, and the deadline to turn in ballots will be 1:15 p.m. If we hit the ground running, I would love to be doing awards shortly after 2 p.m., so we can get folks on the road for home early,” said Thoren.
The Classis Chassis Car Club still includes three charter members, Rick Taylor, Norm Thompson, and Jerry Stanley, who remain very active in the club. This year, the car show is being held in memory of Alan Kirshen.
“He was a long-term member, and never had a chance to be the car show chair. Typically, the car show chair gets their car on the poster. Since Alan never had that opportunity, we are honoring him by putting his car on the poster,” Thoren said.
For more information about Old Car Day, or to register, call 623-4195, 370-1525, or 370-7959.