Decades of steel, rubber and dreamin’ at Ford Lincoln Car Show

Editor’s note: This is a story I wrote last year after a visit to the Sioux City Car Show at Sioux City Ford Lincoln. We’re republishing it this week to preview this year’s event, set for Sunday, May 17. The car show will benefit CSADV and the Briar Cliff Volleyball team.

I watched my son run from car to car Sunday afternoon, over acres of vintage Jeeps, Buicks and roadsters, each in a different stage of rejuvenation. It was a car show at Sioux City Ford Lincoln, the third annual event, and there were hundreds of cars for him to marvel over.

He passed right by the clowns and the car wash, the hot dogs and the kids activities as he headed toward a multi-colored row of historic steel and rubber, a testament to American manufacturing and generations of big motors and fast cars.

There were dreams lived and likely a few dreams dashed in the rows we walked, but all of them had stories to tell.

It wasn’t long before my son stopped cold and declared that he had found his favorite – an oversized metallic blue International pickup truck with big knobby tires and a silvery smokestack that he thought resembled those on his toy tractors.

He wasn’t so concerned with the history of these beauties or the folks who’d put countless hours into their restoration. In fact, each car got only a passing glance as he moved to the next one.

My interests were more organic – who owned these cars and what brought them to this place, this time, restored for thousands to see. So I started asking the owners, who sit near their cars during the show, and their stories poured like the perfect paint that covered every car on the lot.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
Randy and Casey Murkins and their families brought multiple cars to the show. Randy sat proudly behind a bright red 1967 Olds Cutlass as the wind blew in his face.

“It used to be my dad’s car and I ended up buying it about 10 or 12 years ago from my mom,” the elder Murkins said. “Mom hated the car cause it outlived Dad.”

The two door sports a license plate “Milts67” and has only 29,000 original miles, said Murkins, who has fond memories of the car as a child. “I remember riding in it as a kid. Dad was real fussy with it – never took out in the rain, never took it out in the snow.”

Randy has restored many cars in his day, and loves the Olds because it’s not too common at shows. “It’s just a nice car.”

A love of motor oil pulses through the family genes. Randy’s son Casey brought two cars to the show – a 1949 civilian issued Jeep and a 1949 Chrysler Windsor. The more regal of the rides sported a Navy paint job and sat nestled among pickups, Chevy’s and his dad’s Cutlass. The Jeep was in the mix, too, but stood out because of it’s drab green paint job and rugged styling.

“You don’t see them everywhere,” Casey said of the cars he brought to the show. His love of collecting old rides includes a total of nine cars. “My favorite is (a Europeans style) Mini Cooper. You don’t see those much.”

RUSTBUCKET RETURNS
When he inherited his brother’s 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger, it was a total “rustbucket,” said Paul Grigsby. That was more than 30 years ago in Aurelia, where he grew up.

“The quarters were rotted out, the floorboards were rotted out, I had to put fenders on it.” It was a lot of work, he said.

The car looked nearly new Sunday as the sun hit the Plum Crazy paint – yes, that’s the real color – and reflected it off Grigsby’s sunglasses. It took nearly six years to restore, and he said the interior still needs work.

The downside of having a purple car? “I drove it when I was in high school and beat the heck out of it. We’d spin the tires and get in trouble. The mayor in town knew whose purple car it was and if somebody called and said there was a purple car tearing around, the mayor knew whose dad to call.”

Now, he doesn’t spin around too much, taking the car to a couple shows a year.
After a cold winter, Grigsby was excited about the Sioux City Ford Lincoln show. “It’s that time of year. It’s time to get it out of the garage and see people and see everybody else’s cars.”

He wasn’t alone. The show attracted hundreds of exhibitors and hundreds more car lovers. “They stopped and were telling us stories about when hey had [a Dart].” For a car lover like Grigsby, that’s compliment enough.

FIRST DATE
Gary and Colleen Kampfe started dating when Gary drove his first Impala, a black 1958. That was before Gary left for Vietnam. That black ride is long gone, but when Gary saw a Glen Green ’58 a few years back, “I had to have it,” he said.

Sunday’s car show is now a highlight for the couple, who take part in more than 120 car shows a year as part of the Strollers Car Club, which they helped revive in 2009.

“This is really exceptional this year,” Gary said as he smiled and looked across the horizon to a 1960s model Mustang leaving a trail of rubber as he left the parking lot. “There had to be over 300 cars this year.” It has emerged as one of the biggest shows in the region, he said.

Like many others here, Kampfe has spent countless hours restoring this long vintage Chevy.

“Everything underneath it has been redone except the frame,” he said. “Floor panel, overdrive transmission, gas tank … “ he went on as my mind wandered to the classic Corvettes and Mustangs and Camaros of my youth – back then they were old and now they seem ancient. I wonder what they look like in the eyes of my son, who stands on his tiptoes to peer inside the open window of a rare roadster.

I ask Gary and his wife one more question before I go: Why do you come out every year? “Getting to see all the people again. You get to see all the cars and what people did to them over the winter.”
Besides, Gary said, “We never get tired of looking of them.”

THE ONE THAT STARTED IT ALL

As we prepare to leave, my son finds one last car that he proclaims his new favorite: A miniature Model T Ford pickup. The tiny car is just his size and he would have crawled in and driven away if I had let him. The lot is nearly empty now, as the show winds down.

The Model T, which modernized American transportation, stands there alone, still shining, and of course, black. “I want this car, daddy,” my son says. “Me, too, son, me too.”