Bright, sunny weather brings out classic car enthusiasts

By Teresa Stowell of the Daily Times staff
Monday, August 4, 2008 12:36 PM CDT

Many of those attending the classic car show on Sunday at Riverfest took a closer look at the 1936 Ford school bus. To help make it a hot rod, owner Larry Vogel painted the words “Old Skool” on it. (TERESA STOWELL/Daily Times)

Hundreds of people walked through Riverside Park Sunday morning enjoying the warm and sunny weather while taking a closer look under the hood of classic cars during the final day of Riverfest.

While a rainy day last year during Riverfest caused many classic car owners to stay home, the bright, sunny, clear skies on Sunday brought out hundreds of classic cars from Watertown and throughout the state for the annual show.

Larry Reykdal, of Watertown, put the finishing touches on his remodeled 1955 Chevy pickup truck Saturday night by installing the tail lights just in time for the car show on Sunday.

He purchased the classic truck for $90 at an auction in Watertown seven years ago. Reykdal runs a body shop in Waterloo and put his truck remodeling on hold for many years before finally finishing it this year. Riverfest is the first car show to which he took it.

“Customers came first. That's why it took me awhile to finish this one,” Reykdal said. “I've brought a few other cars to the car show in previous years including to the very first Riverfest. We love coming to Riverfest. It's better than a class reunion.”

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After seven years of work, Reykdal found different pieces of the truck from all over the state and painted the truck sunburst orange. The box of the truck is from a 1988 Chevy.

“There's not much left of the original truck,” Reykdal said.

Bill Maron, of Watertown, hasn't done any remodeling to his wife's white 1974 Chevy Corvette.

“The day I met my wife, Laurie, she talked about how she wanted a Corvette one day,” Maron said. “So when our 20th anniversary came, I started looking around.”

Maron found a Corvette on eBay and e-mailed the owner. He purchased the Corvette for a good deal and gave it to his wife on their anniversary.

“I put a picture of the car and the keys in a matchbox,” Maron said. “At first she just saw the picture and thought it was a joke but then when she saw the keys she was really surprised.”

One vehicle catching the eye of many people at the car show was a 1936 Ford school bus owned by Larry and Linda Vogel of Grafton. The old-time bus sat in the middle of a field in Michigan for many years before a friend of the Vogels found it.

“I saw a school bus like this one at a car show and thought it would be a lot of fun to have one of my own,” Larry said. “So when my friend told me about it I just had to have it. I have six grandkids and you can't get them all in a hot rod, you know.”

After taking the bus apart piece by piece and many hours of work, Larry finished the project two years after first finding it in the field in Michigan where it was used as a garbage pit. When Larry brought it home he found all sorts of things inside it including a wooden leg.

“Even after we chopped and dropped it in sections to get it in the basement of our house it still wouldn't fit,” Linda said. “So we did some remodeling.”

Two years later the school bus has a new paint job, new seats, flooring, power windows instead of the original crank windows and a 454 Chevy engine.

This was the first time the Vogels brought the school bus to Riverfest, but this isn't their first time to Riverfest. Linda said they have brought other hot rods years before.

“This is really a gorgeous park,” Linda said. “That's why we come. Also, there's great food and lots of other things to do.”

While many attending Riverfest came earlier for the car show, the park filled in by noon with people walking through the craft show and listening to the tunes of Aja Vu.

The Steely Dan tribute band based in the San Francisco, Calif., area included classic rock songs with the trumpet and saxophone accompanying the singers and guitar players.