AN OLDS LEGACY When I happened upon this 1969 Hurst Olds at the Madera VFD Car Show in August of 2021, the owner was somewhat mobbed by curious spectators. As I was admiring his car and show board display, I overheard him telling some of the backstory. Once I heard him talk about the firewall, stamps, I knew this car had to be a Car Show Life #RideOfTheWeek. This particular Hurst Olds was the only one sold in State College, PA. However, it languished on the Rider Oldsmobile

ONE THING LED TO ANOTHER As is the case in many classic car situations, you work on one thing and that leads to another, and another, and another. Such is the case with Joe Monaghan’s 1948 Willys Panel Truck. When he purchased it 10 years ago it was equipped with a Chevy small block that was tired, so Joe replaced it with a fresher Chevy 350, then came paint, then interior, then wheels and so on and so on. Joe was attracted to it because he like the looks of it. He found it

Throw it in the Dumpster This 1933 Ford is a hybrid…That’s right, it was crossed with a 1980s Toyota Pickup and dubbed by its creator as “The Dumpster”, mainly because “when you hit the switches, it slams to the ground and sounds like garbage truck dropping a dumpster.” One could also infer that the Dumpster name comes from all the odds and ends that make up this awesome, eye-catching rat rod: Toyota 22RE engine, 5-speed transmission, airbag suspension, custom bomber seats, d

WHAT’S A MOPAR? Joe Panaro of Duncansville is a life long Chevy guy. So how does a guy who’s into Chevelles and Corvettes and Camaros end up with a Plymouth? A tragic twist of fate and a family connection. The Plymouth was restored in 2019 for a guy who had a decades long battle with cancer. When he was in remission his kids had the car redone as a gift, but the celebration was short lived as he was diagnosed with dementia. So, they decided to sell the car. That’s when Joe’

DIAMOND IS THIS GIRL’S BEST FRIEND And by “Diamond”, we mean Amanda Lloyd’s 2015 Hyundai Genesis Coupe Ultimate. Amanda first caught the car show bug from her stepdad. She says, “Now, every car show I see, I go to.” And she really enjoys being one of the few women that show up at a local car show each weekend over the summer. Her story and the car seat in the back screamed out to make her “Diamond” a Car Show Life #rideoftheweek. Amanda first fell for the Genesis Coupe whil

THE JAILBIRD'S LOSS WAS HIS GAIN Bob Stutzman of Muncy, PA acquired this 1934 Buick from the wife of an incarcerated felon in Boston, MA. “I don’t know what he did to go to jail, but I got his car.” Bob says that it has its original mohair interior and 263 OHV V8 with dual-carbs. He’s owned it for four years and done just enough work on it to make it a reliable driver. He updated the electrical system to 12 volts and repainted the fenders and running boards. While not the o

MY INHERITANCE Katie Remsnyder takes a little piece of her dad with her to every car show she attends, especially when she arrives in one of her late father’s prized Mustangs. That’s what I gathered from her when I asked to make her 1969 Mach 1 a Car Show Life Ride of the Week after watching it pull into the Pudgie’s Pizza Cruise-in in Montoursville, PA in August. Her dad, Terry, bought the car sometime in the late 80s. It had some right side damage, but nothing too bad tha

SNOT ROD Matt Shuman has owned a lot of ’68 Cougars over the years. This happens to be his fifth. “I’ve done a lot of cars but none have gotten the amount of attention that this was does," Matt says, “I’ll restore a car. Getting it looking good and people say, ‘oh that’s nice’. And move on. But this car, this car keeps people talking.” The story of the Snot Rod starts out with a call from friend in Florida who recently acquired a 1968 Mercury Cougar from New Mexico and was h

From the same show as last week’s #rideoftheweek, comes a 1934 Chevrolet Street Rod. This car initially got my attention because it was presented to me as the best-in-show for the day, but there had been a mix up and the award was actually intended for the ’32 Chevy featured last week. However, this car’s presentation, was still a winner in my book. This all-steel bodied coupe was purchased on eBay Motors from an owner in WV who did all this fabulous paint work including the

BEST IN SHOW When I caught up with Andy Follmer, his 1932 Chevrolet Cabriolet had just taken the best of show award at the 2021 Pennsdale VFD Charity car show, and boy is it ever stunning! Andy has done much of the work on this car since he bought it, but one thing he didn’t touch was the paint. “When I got the car in 2000, the previous owner had painted it in 1997, when he was 84 years old!” Now I’m sure at 108, he’s probably not around anymore, but his handiwork remains. T

A RARE BIRD FROM A RARE FLOCK Tom Berfield of Avis, PA hit the car guy lottery when he happened upon the listing for an estate sale. The son of the deceased was selling off all his collector cars and Tom had first pick. Among the GM A-bodies, he saw this 1970 AMC AMX in Big Bad Orange. To make the car even sweeter, it was equipped with the “Go Pack” which included the 390 V8, 4-Speed and 3.54 gears. Tom is the 3rd owner of the AMX. The previous owner and son lived about a mi

YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING WORSE TO IT THAN I’VE ALREADY DONE When I asked if I could take some interior photos of this 1969 Dodge Dart, the owner responded with, “You can’t do anything worse to it than I’ve already done.” That gave me a chuckle, but also told me, 'there's a story here.' When Rob Paulhamus was 18 years old, he bought this 1969 Dart GTS from the back lot a Van Campen Dodge in 1973 and has owned the car ever since. He paid a mere $1,400 for the fire-engine red A-Bo

MAKE MINE A MACH 1 Jerry Dittmann of Howard, PA wanted a new Shelby GT350. He had been looking for one ever since Ford reintroduced that trim level on a Mustang. But, as fate would have it, his next door neighbor bought the exact car he had been pining for. Jerry faced a decision, keep up with the Joneses or dare to be different. With his Shelby dreams dashed he learned that Ford was bringing back the Mach 1 for 2021. He said, “I’m in!” He ordered a 2021 Mach 1 in Velocit

It's A Time Machine In the 1985 film, "Back To The Future", Dr. Emmett L. Brown invents a time machine from a car, a 1981 Delorean DMC-12. In the film, the first "temporal experiment" takes place in the wee hours of October, 26th, so this week we honor the anniversary of that fictional time machine, with a real one. Steve Frei’s 2017 Challenger T/A grabbed my attention with his display showing the AAR Cuda he owned when he was in his teens with the story about “going home ag

A BARN BACKYARD FIND I've always been a muscle car guy at heart, but there's one little import that touched me early in life and probably the only Japanese car that could pull me away from my beloved Camaro, the Datsun Z Car. So, when I saw this particular example at the Central PA Street Machines' monthly cruise in Mill Hall, PA, I had to talk to the owners and get their story. In 1998 Charles and Elsie Klump were in California when they spotted a 1972 Datsun 240Z wasting aw

K-BOOM The license plate on this car is what got my attention. In the early 1970s the Ford Pinto was at the center of vehicle safety with its tendency to burst into flames after a rear-end collision. It seems the gas tank was mounted to0 close the rear bumper and at low speeds would tear away from the fuel filler and rupture. At higher speeds, the car could buckle all the way to the passenger compartment, seizing the doors and trapping the occupants. Add a spark and, well,

David Wright definitely raised his little girl right. She’s a State Trooper out in Arizona and knows exactly what her dad likes. She bought this 1947 Frazer for him in the Southwest as a birthday gift, and in the hopes that he might decided to move out west and enjoy life in the desert in his golden years. However, David is a PA boy thru and thru and just won’t leave the Keystone State. So, she shipped the Frazer to him, complete with Arizona tags that read “GR8TDAD”. David

WILLIAMSPORT’S OLDEST TEENAGER Fred Agnoni’s wife Ann calls him "Williamsport’s Oldest Teenager". At 88 years young, he is just as spry and passionate about cars today as the young 19-year-old who returned from a tour in Korea in the early 50’s. I really enjoyed speaking to him at a Cars & Coffee event where he complimented my 2011 Camaro. I took that as high praise, since he was a life-long Ford guy and the owner of this gorgeous 2010 Roush Mustang 427R. “I was brought up

RETURN TO ME Dean Wolfgang of Winfield, PA has is the 2nd and 8th owner of this 1969 Z28 Camaro. The first time was in the 1970s as his daily driver. He even put on studded snow tires for Central PA winters back in the day. Eventually he sold it and 5 others had the chance of calling this F-body theirs. Dean then found the car in 2011, bought it and began a 7-year journey to restore it to its original glory after it had been drag raced by some of the previous owners. Thank

WARNING: WARRANTIES WERE VOIDED IN THE MAKING OF THIS RIDE Adam Confer is the proud papa of this steel baby, a 2021 Mustang with the Eco Boost High Performance Package finished in the retro color of Twister Orange. He was looking for an affordable 4 or 6 cylinder muscle car and found exactly what he was looking for in this ‘Stang. “You just don’t see many of these 2.3L around like this,” Adam says as he surveys the Williamsport Cars & Coffee meet in July of 2021; “Every Musta