A great night for motorheads

Aug. 15--NEWBURYPORT -- With classic rock filling the air and some of the most iconic vintage automobiles parked along the roadsides, walking through downtown yesterday was like time-traveling back to the mid-20th century.

Radio station WNBP and the Chamber of Commerce hosted the third annual "Cruisin' the '50s" festival, featuring hundreds of vintage vehicles, including a DeLorean from "Back to the Future" fame and a million-dollar Delahaye.

Ray Vetree came from Winthrop and his friend Gil Cottrell from Antrim, N.H., to watch the classic beauties pass up State Street for the show.

"I'm 74 years old and I know them all," Vetree said, as he snapped away at Studebakers, Chevrolets, Caddies and Fords. "And I owned a lot of them. I had a '49 Chevy and a '49 Cadillac convertible. They're wonderful."

Before the show, Chris Skiba was on his way to pick up his red, 1970 muscle-car-in-the-extreme, an Oldsmobile 4-4-2, to see if they'd let him in the show.

"I'm going to pick up my three sons," Skiba said. "This is going to be a great night."

According to Matt Khatib, owner of M.K. Benatti Jewelers, a car lover and sponsor of the show's "mystery car," the event is terrific for Newburyport.

"Even if they don't come in to shop today, it's such great exposure for the downtown," Khatib said.

For restaurants, however, the event is a seat-filler.

At State Street's Agave Mexican Bistro, by 3:45 p.m., the reservation book had been filled for the night. That's not a surprise. In past years restaurants filled up during and after the event. People came for the car show, and they wanted to eat, according to Agave veteran Christian Dunbar.

"There's so much foot traffic and it's such a great event," said Dunbar. "We're dressed in '50s garb. This night is so much fun."

Although cars from every decade of the 20th century rolled up the street, the 1950s were on parade.

An important time in American history, the '50s ushered in a new experience in design for everything from clothing to architecture to automobiles. The 1940s were the years of World War II, when fashion was staid and car styling stagnated. But the '50s tossed open the doors and brought in the fresh air of innovation.

In came fanciful poodle skirts and angora sweaters for fuzzy teenage girls, and black no longer dominated the nation's vehicles. Instead, consumers found bright greens, fiery reds and the ultimate colors of turquoise and baby blue.

The result was amazing for driving enthusiasts, renewing America's love affair with their automobiles. And the lineup of classic cars on Pleasant and State streets yesterday fed the soul of every baby boomer in the region, as well as those who reminisce about an era that brought us Elvis and rock 'n' roll.

General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Studebaker and Hudson car makers started off the '50s with attention-getting changes in body styles. But by the time the mid- to late '50s arrived, the country's car makers' imaginations were in full swing, encompassing the "jet age" with lots of chrome, two-tone exteriors, outrageous taillight fins and powerful engines.

Automotive icons of the day included the Chevy Bel Air and its companion, the Chevy Impala, Ford's Fairlanes and Skylarks, speedy Hudsons and the amazing panache of Studebaker's Silver Hawks. And thanks to yesterday's gathering of automotive art, those born too late for their first go-round had a chance to marvel at them all.

The '50s was also the introduction of the "two-seater, personal car" for American manufacturers. European's open roadsters by Jaguar, MG, Morgan, Alfa Romeo, Triumph and Porsche were being purchased by adventuresome Americans impressed with their look and sophistication. General Motors and Ford responded with this country's legendary contributions to the category: Chevy's Corvette and Ford's Thunderbird.

"We have a great sample of Chevy Bel Airs from '53 to '61," said WNBP's Wes Pettengill, who coordinated the show. "And Impalas from '60 through '62. And we have a '57 Ford Skylark -- the hardtop convertibles had 1,600 feet of wiring to make the top go down. We have the (two-seater) Thunderbirds from '55 to '57; in the 1958, Thunderbirds got a back seat."

For the international crowd, Inn Street was the place to be, with a 1957 Porsche 356 and two, French Citroen 2CV's, cars from the '50s that sported the first rudimentary "fastback" body style. Also making a showing was the German car that took America by storm: a 1957 Volkswagen "Bug."

With Ford's Mustang celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the show had a sampling of these "pony cars" throughout their lifespan corralled in the Tracy Place lot. Pettengill was in awe of Walter Ayre from Elliot, Maine, who fell in love with the first Mustang built when it was shown at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

"He loved it when he saw it at the World's Fair, and he went right home and ordered one," Pettengill said.

Ayre had enough foresight to keep that Mustang all these years, and he brought it to Newburyport to sit near the 2014 version, on display thanks to Wall's Ford.

There were as many stories as there were wonderful cars.

Ron and Torey Dean from Watertown returned to Newburyport with two stars of the show: a "Matador" red '57 Bel Air convertible and a Venetian red '57 Corvette. Both cars are owned by the father-son team of car lovers and both sport all their original equipment, including Chevy's amazing small-block, 283-cubic-inch engine, making 220 horsepower.

"The Corvette has 57,000 original miles," said 41-year-old Tory Dean. "We bought them fully restored. We're purists. They're exactly as they came from the factory; all their numbers match."

He said his baby boomer dad chose the cars because of what they represented, Dean said.

"For my dad, the cars represent the kind of cars he always wanted as a kid," Dean said. "For me, they represent the '50s. I just love that era. It was a more innocent time."

Returning to the city for their third WNBP car show, Dean said, the venue is very special.

"To see all these cars parked along the streets of Newburyport is really great," he said.

DeLorean and Delahaye celebrity cars spark imaginations

It took Michael J. Fox's time-travel adventure in a DeLorean in the movie "Back to the Future" to redeem the car from its status as a failed model built by a flamboyant, former General Motors engineer, the late John DeLorean.

Known as a talented General Motors engineer and executive before he founded his DeLorean Motor Company in Detroit in 1975, finding the needed capital was a problem from the beginning and DeLorean finally got backing from the British government and started manufacturing his Italian-designed, two-seater sports car in a plant outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1979.

The brushed steel exterior and gull-wing doors made it a real head-turner when it came out. DeLoreans sold for about $25,000 new, sporting a fairly spartan interior and equipped with a rear-mounted, 156-horsepower, six-cylinder Volvo/Renault engine with Renault transmission. They were reliable engines, but had a maximum speed of about 110 miles per hours, not the kind of statistical pizzazz that other sports cars like Corvette or Porsche could claim.

Cost overruns, production issues and constant cash-flow problems plagued the company. So did DeLorean's very public legal problems. Although he was eventually acquitted of cocaine distribution charges brought by the FBI, DeLorean's company didn't fare as well.

In 1982, after only about 9,000 DeLoreans were built, the plant closed, but there are still many loyal DeLorean owners proud to spring open those amazing doors and emerge from the movie icon.

Movie fans had a chance to get their pictures taken with the DeLorean like the one made famous in "Back to the Future" and pay a small donation that will benefit Fox's Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

The cause is a personal one for Steven Mollohan, owner of Georgetown Insurance and one of the show's sponsors, whose wife was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2009.

Those who know their antique cars had a chance to guess that the mystery car was in fact a 1946 Delahaye 135 M, a priceless French car that epitomized the art deco styling and excess of its origins in the '30s.

"It's just a massive car," said M.K. Benatti owner, Matt Khatib, who sponsored the huge, black and chrome masterpiece.

Founded in Tours, France, by Emile Delahaye in 1894, the Delahaye automobile company's first cars were belt-driven, with single- or twin-cylinder engines. Although Delahaye would leave the company in 1901 due to poor health, it continued making cars until 1954, producing some spectacular vehicles.

The 135 was a luxury car known as the "Coupe Des Alpes," following its successful run in the 1935 Alpine Rally. The 135 M was introduced in 1936, and was even larger, with a 3,557-cubic-centimeter engine offering a choice of one, two or three carburetors.

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