Although it rained for most of the morning Saturday, 114 gearheads still made their way in their classic, custom and modern cars — polished and waxed or rusted but still running — to the annual Hub City Car Show in downtown Centralia on Tower Avenue.
The show was organized by the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association in partnership with the Lewis County Quarter Milers car club. It featured live music, custom made trophies and local vendors.
Live 95 & KITI gave away a plum crazy-colored 2007 Dodge Charger RT Daytona, which was won by Kara Munz, of Chehalis.
All car show proceeds help fund Centralia College scholarships and maintenance of Central Park in downtown Centralia.
For more information, follow or message the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association on its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/downtownevents.centralia or visit https://centraliadowntownfestivals.com/.
The Lewis County Quarter Milers will host another car show next weekend, Cruzin’ To Good Buzz Car Show, scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 31, starting at 3 p.m.
It will be held outside of Good Buzz Brewing Co., located at 1640 S. Gold St. in Centralia’s Fairway Center, and will also feature the Mr. Lewis County contest put on in partnership with the Veterans Memorial Museum.
Then, on Sunday, Sept. 1, the Veterans Memorial Museum will host the annual Rust or Shine Car Show beginning at 9 a.m. at 100 SW Veterans Way in Chehalis.
Though turnout may not have been has high as the past two years at the Hub City Car Show, there were still several cars which captured The Chronicle’s attention — including a rose pink 1957 Pontiac Star Chief, a stretched 1974 Volkswagen Beetle limousine and a 1960 Plymouth Suburban station wagon that once carried around members of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
The Atomic Energy Commission Suburban
When people mention the name Suburban, the sports utility vehicle made by Chevrolet dating back to 1935 is usually the vehicle that comes to mind.
But from 1949 to 1978, Plymouth produced its own version of the Suburban, in both two-door and four-door station wagon configurations. And the one Mike Nordin, of Adna, owns, a 1960 two-door, just also happens to have been a former shuttle vehicle for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
“This is still the original paint job on this car, what’s left of it at least,” Nordin said. “... I bought it in the Tri-Cities in 1989, and it’s looked exactly like this ever since.”
Despite the faded paint, the phrase “ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION” can still be seen on both sides of the wagon. He added his model year was the last model that came with shark fins on the rear end.
It was also the first year Plymouth began producing the car with a unibody construction where the frame and body were all one piece according to Nordin.
The two-door model was also the cheapest station wagon on the market in 1960, Nordin said, which is why the U.S. military and other government agencies — including the Atomic Energy Commission — decided to purchase them for transportation.
Although it was new at the time, the car’s unibody design ended up being a detriment, as many began to rust, leaving few Plymouth Suburbans around today.
He did find one old one in a junkyard and was able to salvage the hood letters for it. But instead of saving the letters, he combined them with the ones he had and spelled out “holymoly” on his Suburban’s hood instead of Plymouth.
And though Nordin doesn’t “pamper” his car a lot, he has replaced the motor and interior and still frequently drives it into town.
The stretched Beetle
Volkswagen Beetles are timeless classics, with the compact German cars having carved out a spot in the hearts of millions of Americans who have owned them since they invaded the U.S. during the 1960s along with the British rock band The Beatles.
And while millions have owned a Beetle, not many can say their Beetle was a limousine. However, Tom Craswell, of Centralia, can. He just doesn’t know exactly what year it is.
“I want to say it’s a ‘74, the title says ‘74,” Craswell said. “But we just had to do a rewiring, and the wiring was from a 1971 Bug. And then who knows what the back is.”
He recently bought the Beetle already stretched into a limousine, but spent some time redoing the car’s upholstery and paint job, painting it white.
“It just got done, and today’s the first day I took it out,” Craswell said.
Even though it rained on what was the first day he had taken it out, Craswell added he wasn’t mad about the weather.
“I’m not a painter so I don’t care. It still turned out OK,” he said.
A rose pink Pontiac Star Chief
Originally based on the Pontiac Chieftain and meant to be the high-end trim model, the Pontiac Star Chief was a sedan produced from 1954 to 1966 and easily identifiable with its chrome star trim which came on all Star Chiefs.
For Jim Sutherland of Olympia, the 1957 Pontiac Star Chief he bought in 1990 was a restoration project worth doing.
“It was a parts car when we bought it, it was stripped of basically everything. No engine, no fenders, no doors, no hood, no trunk,” Sutherland said. “We had to find everything.”
What was left needed to be sanded and repainted as well, but Sutherland was able to restore it during the 90s as many of the old junk yards he went to had parts he needed. However, many of those junk yards are no longer in business today.
“I was lucky to restore it when I did,” he added.
The car will remain in the family as well now that it’s restored, with Sutherland’s grandson, Tatem, getting the honor of driving the car down to Centralia and back up to Olympia for Saturday’s show.
