Car show draws big crowd to dealership
By John Joyce
Published in News on November 2, 2014 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Cecil Patterson of Wilson shines up the chrome around the headlights of his 1971 SS 396 Chevelle during the 20th annual Veterans Day Car Show held Saturday at Chevrolet of Goldsboro. Everything on the car is original, besides the paint color and a few additions under the hood.
Corvettes. Check
Chevelles. Check
Novas. Check.
More than 200 autos, from vintage Model A's to a 2015 50th edition Ford Mustang, lined the lot at Chevrolet of Goldsboro Saturday for the 20th annual Veteran's Day Car Show.
The Eastern Carolina Corvette Club has sponsored the event for the last four years.
"By the end of the day we'll see more than a thousand spectators," club president Buster Dawson said.
All of the proceeds from the event will go to the Disabled American Veterans of Goldsboro.
"Every dime we earn today will go to the veterans," Chevrolet's Jennifer Tyndall said as onlookers wandered the car lot, peering at shiny chrome and brightly colored metal.
Ms. Tyndall said planning for the event starts at the beginning of the year and takes months of coordination.
"We pick a date and set it, and then have regular meetings with the car club throughout the year," she said.
The car show serves as part competition, part pageant and part auto sales show.
Hoods and trunk lids are propped open, windows rolled down exposing plush, polished interiors, and signs warning lookers not to become touchers hang about most windshields, some next to for-sale signs.
Cecil Patterson, showing his fully restored 1971 Chevy Chevelle SS 396, said he was ready to let the car he'd spent the last six years rebuilding go for just $36,500.
"When we first got her, the body was here, the motor was over here, the transmission was over here," he said.
The car still had its original engine, which had to be restored by a company in Wilson. Everything else, all original except a few chrome additions to spruce up the engine and a shade of yellow paint taken from a later model Corvette, was done by Patterson's and a friend's own hands.
His wife of 43 years, Brenda, also got involved in caring for the car, he said.
"If you'd have come by just a few minutes ago you would have seen her out here wiping her down," he said.
Patterson said he hasn't named the car he calls a she or her but if he did she'd bear his wife's name.
"She's a major part of it," he said.
That type of affection and attention to detail showed in every vehicle on display Saturday, from the newly obtained and still in need of work to the vintage jobs fully restored with parts only from their original era.
A 50/50 raffle was also held with 25 percent of the proceeds benefiting the dealership, 25 percent to the Corvette club and 50 percent to the Disabled American Veterans.