Ever been to a car show? If you’ve lived in the Midwest for any amount of time, there’s a good chance you have, or at 
least, been dragged to one as a child. Once again, a not-so-old Springfield tradition, the International Route 66 Mother Road Festival, was held downtown this year on the weekend of Sept. 25.
As the son of an auto body shop owner, I’ve been to quite a few car shows in my day. Since moving to Springfield, though, I’ve grown old enough to appreciate them. This year’s Route 66 festival, like previous years, offered onlookers a glimpse into America’s auto heritage.
Why all the nostalgia over old gas guzzlers, you may ask? These automobiles are like rolling museums. When tied to the infamous Route 66 “Mother Road,” they not only tell a story about their designs and specs, but also tell about the people who owned them and how they helped shape our nation into a modern, vehicular culture where we can travel easily (mostly) to (almost) any part of the country. To better understand this, however, it helps to have a little background knowledge on Route 66.
I won’t go into Route 66 history in this post. You can approach any older car owner at one of these shows, who may have actually driven on Route 66 … or at least remember it as a kid, and find out how these automobiles and this highway affected their lives. To preserve these automobiles is to preserve a brighter side of our nation’s history from the 1920s to the 1970s, when Americans were expanding by moving west and building new settlements along the way.
Springfield’s downtown Route 66 festival has been held in the Old State Capitol area each September since the early 2000s. I first attended and volunteered at 2003’s event. In 2004, my dad and I brought a 1960s Camaro that he restored for a family member to the show. I volunteered then, too, and had a good time. This year, I decided to check it out with my Canon 50D at my side.
This year’s turnout of classic cars did seem smaller than when I last attended in 2004, but you can blame a slew of factors on that … down economy, lousy weather Friday and Saturday (morning, at least), so many fall car shows, etcetera. There were more varieties of booths and vendors present this year, compared to what I remember from before. Despite some rain during the weekend, it seemed like many people made it downtown this year to enjoy the festivities. You can check out the event’s Web site (link in first paragraph) for a more information. One thing about that … I’m not sure when the event was sold (???) to the company running familyevents.com, but their old Web site seemed better.
If you couldn’t tell from the photos below, I like Corvettes. There were many varieties of autos at the show, both old and new, but Corvettes always catch my eye. Some of these photos were also uploaded to our local newspaper’s Web site, The State Journal-Register.