With the season for ghosts and goblins upon us, some La Grange residents organized a Halloween-themed car show.
The West End Trunk-or-Treat Car Show brought vintage vehicles of all kinds to the west end of town, occupying a block of Burlington Avenue between Waiola and Stone avenues.
“It was a really lovely community event and it was a great kickoff for the Halloween season,” Susan McMillin, owner with her husband Jack of the sponsoring business Jack’s West End, a men’s clothing store at 712 W. Burlington, said. “And I really do love hearing people’s stories about their cars.”
Other sponsors of the inaugural La Grange Car Show were local publication “Greet” and the art gallery Den10 Studio, 16 S. Stone Ave.
Though 25 owners pre-registered for the event, those who came at the last minute brought the total number to 54.
Car owners had bowls of candies for trick or treaters, youngsters dressed up in their Halloween costumes and a DJ provided musical entertainment.
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The visitors — which McMillan said numbered about 400 through the afternoon — chose a People’s Choice winner, who turned out to be Christopher Studwell and his 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. First runner-up was Jim Minton with a 1955 GMC100 truck, second runner-up was Tom Hodge with a 1938 Buick and third runner-up was Frank Palella with a 1970 Ford Mustang
Minton, a lifelong La Grange resident, talked about how he became involved in refurbishing his GMC truck.
“I was at a car show with my dad, and we saw a truck kind of like this,” Minton said. “He said, ‘I think my cousin has a truck like that in Wisconsin, sitting in a field. It’s been there for, like, 10 years.’ So I called him up and said, how much you want? He said a thousand bucks delivered and he delivered it to our house.”
Minton has been working on refurbishing the truck for 16 years and just got it finished in time for this show, saying he had to refurbish “everything.”
“The whole bed is brand new sheet metal,” he said. “The cab was rusted, it’s got floors, bottoms of the steps, bottoms of the doors — everything’s been replaced with patch panels.”
In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, Alex Butakes showed off one of his prize possessions, a 1965 Pontiac hearse, complete with a coffin.
“They were looking for something that fits the season, you know, Halloween. So they contacted us.”
But the circumstances that led to him collecting hearses goes back a ways.
“We have some friends that were in a band, and they had a hearse that they hauled their gear around,” he said. “But the band broke up, and the car sat for a while, and they told my wife, if she wants it, you gotta come and get it. So we bought it.”
Butakes and his wife have spent the last 30 years buying and reselling hearses. They’ve had the ’65 Pontiac since the beginning of their hobby and had to only do basic maintenance over the years.
Like Butakes, Tom and Stephanie Posey had a relatively easy time restoring their 1967 Pontiac GTO, the car everyone in the 1960s knew as the “Goat.”
“It was close to this shape,” Tom said. “We had to do a few things to it, but when we got it, it was, I would say, semi-restored. So we did the rest. We got a lot of safety upgrades because we had little kids, so we put shoulder belts in the back seats. And seatbelts in the front because it didn’t have any.”
Brad and Carla Carter brought two vintage vehicles to the show: a 1955 Ford Thunderbird and a “dune buggy” with a fiberglass body on the chassis of a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle.
“I’ve been doing this since I was born,” Brad joked. “My dad was a car guy, so I’ve been doing it all my life.”
McMillin talked about how the first-ever La Grange car show came to be.
“Several people have approached us about car shows over the past two years,” she said. “I think because we sell men’s clothing. So it was like, you sell men’s clothing, men like cars, you should have a car show. So I started talking to the village about it a couple of years ago, but this summer we finally got off the ground.
McMillin said because of unforeseen factors, the show’s $10 entrance fee — $15 at the door — didn’t quite pay for getting the show off the ground.
“I think if we do it next year though, we definitely will cover our costs, ” she said. “There’s just a learning curve, you know, things we didn’t anticipate, what they would cost. … I didn’t know it costs $500 to rent a porta potty.”
McMillin said that once the show does cover its cost, proceeds would go to a nonprofit organization, likely BEDS Plus.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.