SSR in the News...
No SSR photo though!
Cruise nights bring out cars, crowds - Kansas City Star
Cruise nights in the Northland: Cool cars and cool music.
That’s how Donna Bredeson of Parkville described a cruise night in North Kansas City this summer.
“Friendship and fellowship” are the words Karl Cozad of Kansas City, North, used to describe a cruise night in Liberty.
On weekends from April through October somewhere in Clay or Platte County, a cruise night is drawing a crowd.
Around town squares, in parking lots and on streets, cars and trucks of all makes and models – vintage cars, hot rods, muscle cars, imports, classics – gleam beneath the late-afternoon sun.
They have custom paint jobs, new leather interiors, new engines. They’re rebuilt, restored and revered.
A typical cruise night brings out about 200 cars – millions of dollars worth of vehicles, said John Garner of Gladstone, who shows his 2004 Chevrolet SSR, a convertible truck.
A cruise night also rings in at cash registers around town.
“It brings in foot traffic and extra business to restaurants,” said Roger Krone, street superintendent for North Kansas City.
In Liberty, Juan Covarrubias, manager of Los Compas on the square, said cruise nights boost business at the restaurant by 35 to 40 percent.
“It’s good for us,” he said.
Typically, there are no entry fees, admission or rules. Unlike car shows, awards usually aren’t given at cruise nights, but participants receive dash plaques – mementos for the dashboard imprinted with the event location.
The cars can’t talk, but their owners can. And they are eager to tell you about their prized possessions.
“I’ve had old cars for 40 years,” said Howard Fox of Kansas City, North. “Cruise night is a chance to get out and meet people and see different cars.”
At the North Kansas City car night, Fox was showing a red 1955 Thunderbird he bought in 2003 in North Carolina and had restored.
Mark Redelberger of Grain Valley has a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere, an old highway patrol car with a 383-cubic-inch engine and automatic transmission
“It’s a muscle car in disguise,” he said at the Liberty cruise night.
Redelberger, 62, said he was drawn to the car because of his longtime career in law enforcement.
At the North Kansas City cruise night, Bredeson sat in a lawn chair beside her husband’s 1969. She said she enjoyed having admirers stop to reminisce about their memories of such a car.
For sure, nostalgia plays a big role in cruise nights. The cool music is mostly oldies from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
Car songs like “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Hot Rod Lincoln” can be heard all night in keeping with the theme of the event and the age of the participants.
“Most are middle-aged or older,” said Phil Jay, radio personality and announcer for the North Kansas City cruise night the last five years.
Over the years, Jay said, crowds have gotten bigger as interest in the monthly event has grown. Increasingly, aficionados and their families across the Northland are packing up lawn chairs and coolers to spend an evening with those who share their automotive enthusiasm.
And it may not be not a gallery setting, but the cars are “works of art,” Jay said.
Style. Inside and out, these vehicles have got it and they’re flaunting it. Hoods are raised up high to allow a view normally reserved fora mechanic.
Who knew car guts could look so pretty?
Linear Mode
