Antique & Classic Cars Blog

When my brother and I were little kids, there was a museum on the Pennsylvania turnpike called Automobile-o-rama. Every year when we drove from our transplanted home of PA to my parents’ familial home in Minnesota, my brother and I would clamor to stop at this glorious assortment of antique and classic cars.

Classics are certainly great–and fast and stylish and sexy–but there’s something uniquely appealing in the oldest cars–the wild horseless carriages entrepreneurs created out of buggy parts and engine technology emerging in the railroad and agricultural environs.

My friend Tom, who runs an old-school engine shop in Blaine, has been after me for a couple years to join him in viewing the cars on the New London to New Brighton run. The Brass-Era car event mimics with “New” its otherwise namesake event in England, the London to Brighton run.

The cars hit their halfway point in Buffalo, where the local school provides a nice big parking lot to stage the cars for an adoring crowd scurrying with cameras, as well as a large, comfortable cafeteria for burgers, brats, or hot dogs and a little rest out of the sun.

These cars are inventions and works of art. Something about their craftsmanship, curves, stately leather and brass and tall antiquated wood-spoke wheels sets youthful minds dreaming. These machines changed the way this nation’s European-American immigrants lived, opening up our vast nation to travel for pleasure and widespread settlement.

We’ve all seen Brass Era cars in movies. Hearing and seeing them run live, in three dimensions, increases the thrill fivefold.

These huffing, chuffing, air and water-cooled, gas and steam powered, chain-driven relics have a charm somehow lost on the modern automobile. Lucky attendees saw cars by REO, Ford, Maxwell, Franklin, Stanley (Steamer), Brush, Buick, Cadillac, Duro, Le Zebre, International Harvester Company, Locomobile, Overland, Schacht and others.

Most visitors to this blog have dreamed of unleashing a Cobra or Vette or GT40 or Offy-powered sprint car on a well-kept racetrack. Amazing how these cars that competed with actual horses prompt a different dream–pulling on a pair of gloves and chugging down a country road with your best gal by your side, rarely exceeding the pace of a high-end golf cart.

This event may have you peering at barns in a completely different way, hoping that a car that tops out at fifty sleeps inside instead of one that throws down three times that top end.

This is a wonderful automotive celebration–one created for drivers and mechanics and adventurers.

When next August rolls around, track down the dates for the New London to New Brighton run and bring the family. Believe me, you’ll fall in love with these cars.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Car stories, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.