On a Friday evening in September, more than 175 classic cars lined four blocks of Main Street in downtown Delta, and next to just about every one of them stood the person who loves it. KVNF asked each owner two things: "Tell me about your car.", and "Why do you do it?"
The first question was easy. A 1923 Ford Model T touring car. A 1968 Mustang convertible built as a Shelby tribute. A 1965 Pontiac 2+2, a '55 Chevy Bel Air, a '53 Ford Victoria with a four-inch chop and flames, a '34 Chevy street rod, a 1978 Volkswagen Transporter, a 1966 Ford Bronco, a 1960 Cadillac convertible on air ride.
The second question took longer, and almost every answer started decades before the car.
The Model T's owner went to high school in the 1950s. "A friend of mine used to drive his dad's Model T to school every now and then," he said. "It always fascinated me." Decades of sports cars later, he semi-retired to a small ranch on Redlands Mesa, and a Model T was sitting across the street.
The Pontiac's owner grew up in a car family and fell for Pontiacs when his brother bought a '64 Le Mans. "When I retired I told myself I'm gonna buy a Pontiac and I found a Pontiac and I bought it," he said. "It's a lot of work, but it's more love than it is work."
The Mustang's owner wanted the car a high school girlfriend had in the early 1980s. Hers is "kind of a mid-life crisis birthday present car to myself." Firing up the V8, she said, "just makes a beautiful sound you don't hear anymore."
The '34 Chevy "sat around in my way for about 35 years or more" before its owner pulled it into the middle of his shop the day after a Christmas deadline came and went, and tore it apart so he would have to finish it. He learned the work from his father. "My dad would have me help him work on vehicles when I was 12 years old, putting points in old Chevy trucks and all."
Not every car on the street was shiny. The Volkswagen bus, its owner said, "looks like hell, but it runs like a dream," a new engine under a body he hasn't washed on purpose. Why keep it? "For the love of the game," he said. "I love these guys so much and just want to see them on the road."
The Bronco's owner has kept his all original since he bought it from a Glade Park rancher in 1998. "It's a true Americana," he said.
The Cadillac's owner calls his "the boat," and explained Cadillac culture in one sentence: "once you love them, you stick to it."
Shows like this happen all over the country every summer weekend. Asked why, the Pontiac's owner gave the shortest answer of the night. "Car people are car people. I don't know what to say."
