By Owen Sexton / [email protected]
Despite rain most of Saturday morning, 114 car enthusiasts headed to the annual Hub City Car Show on Tower Avenue in downtown Centralia in their classic, custom and modern cars – polished and waxed or rusted but still drivable.
The show was organized by the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association in conjunction with the Lewis County Quarter Milers Car Club and featured live music, custom trophies and local vendors.
Live 95 & KITI raffled off a 2007 Dodge Charger RT Daytona in plum, which was won by Kara Munz of Chehalis.
All proceeds from the car show go to fund scholarships at Centralia College and the maintenance of Central Park in downtown Centralia.
For more information, follow or message the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/downtownevents.centralia, or visit https://centraliadowntownfestivals.com/.
The Lewis County Quarter Milers will be hosting another car show next weekend, the Cruzin’ To Good Buzz Car Show, which will be held on Saturday, August 31st starting at 3 p.m.
It takes place outside of Good Buzz Brewing Co. (1640 S. Gold St. in the Fairway Center in Centralia) and also includes the Mr. Lewis County Contest, hosted in conjunction with the Veterans Memorial Museum.
Then on Sunday, September 1st, the Veterans Memorial Museum will host the annual Rust or Shine Car Show at 100 SW Veterans Way in Chehalis starting at 9am.
Although the Hub City Car Show didn’t draw quite as many visitors as it has in the past two years, there were still a few cars that caught the Chronicle’s attention – including a pink 1957 Pontiac Star Chief, a stretched-out 1974 Volkswagen Beetle sedan and a 1960 Plymouth Suburban station wagon that once carried members of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
The Suburban Atomic Energy Commission
When you hear the name Suburban, you usually first think of Chevrolet’s sport utility vehicle from 1935.
But from 1949 to 1978, Plymouth produced its own version of the Suburban, both as a two-door and a four-door station wagon. And Mike Nordin of Adna’s 1960 two-door also happened to be a former shuttle vehicle for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
“This is still the original paint on this car, at least what’s left of it,” Nordin said. “…I bought it in the Tri-Cities in 1989 and it’s looked the same ever since.”
Despite the faded paint, the car still has the words “ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION” on both sides. He added that his model year was the last to feature shark fins on the rear.
According to Nordin, it was also the first year that Plymouth began producing the car with a monocoque body, in which the frame and body were made from one piece.
The two-door model was also the cheapest station wagon on the market in 1960, Nordin said. For this reason, the U.S. military and other government agencies – including the Atomic Energy Commission – decided to buy it for transportation purposes.
Although the car was new at the time, the monocoque body ultimately proved to be a disadvantage as many examples began to rust, so that only a few Plymouth Suburbans remain in circulation today.
He found an old one in a junkyard and was able to salvage the hood letters. But instead of keeping the letters, he combined them with the ones he had and wrote “Holymoly” on the hood of his Suburban instead of “Plymouth.”
And although Nordin doesn’t “pamper” his car much, he replaced the engine and interior and still often drives it into the city.
The stretched beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle is a timeless classic. Ever since the Beetle invaded the United States in the 1960s with the British rock band The Beatles, it has carved out a place for itself as a compact German car in the hearts of millions of Americans who own them.
And while millions have owned a Beetle, few can say theirs was a sedan. Tom Craswell of Centralia can, though. He just doesn’t know exactly what year it is.
“I’d say it’s a ’74, the title says ’74,” Craswell said. “But we just had to do some new wiring, and the wiring came from a ’71 Beetle. And who knows what’s on the back then.”
He had recently purchased the Beetle converted into a sedan, but spent some time reupholstering and repainting the car and painting it white.
“It just got finished and today is the first day I took it out,” Craswell said.
Although it rained the first day he took it out, Craswell added that he wasn’t upset about the weather.
“I’m not a painter, so I don’t care. It turned out pretty well anyway,” he said.
A pink Pontiac Star Chief
Originally based on the Pontiac Chieftain and intended as a top-of-the-line model, the Pontiac Star Chief was a sedan produced from 1954 to 1966 and was easily recognized by the chrome star trim that all Star Chiefs featured.
For Jim Sutherland of Olympia, the 1957 Pontiac Star Chief he purchased in 1990 was a worthwhile restoration project.
“When we bought the car, it was a parts warehouse, with practically everything removed. No engine, no fenders, no doors, no hood, no trunk,” said Sutherland. “We had to find everything.”
What was left also needed to be sanded down and repainted, but Sutherland was able to restore it in the 1990s because many of the old salvage yards he visited had the parts he needed. However, many of those salvage yards are no longer in operation today.
“I was lucky that I was able to restore it back then,” he added.
Even after the restoration, the car will remain in the family. Sutherland’s grandson Tatem will have the honor of driving the car to Centralia for Saturday’s show and back to Olympia.
