Classic car and truck owners from several Albuquerque clubs gathered at a staging area under a hot sun in the parking lot of an outdoor mall. They greet each other with smiles, handshakes and lots of back slapping.
Andrew Wasson joined them as he waited for the car show to begin. He has many memories of his days on Route 66. And it all starts with his car.
“This car, it’s a 1967 Impala, all original three on a tree. This was actually my mom’s car,” he said.
In 1974, Wasson’s mom bought the two-door car and Andrew’s grandpa restored it completely. He was the person who “got him into cars,” Wasson said.
“Every year we go to this show in Pine Top, Arizona, Run to the Pines. I‘ve been going there since I was one years old,” he said.
Wasson is a member of the Albuquerque Classic Car and Truck Club. Many drivers here are associated with clubs like the Drifters Classic Car Club, Ballers Choice Classic Car Club, and Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque.
Including Matthew Lara, who smiled slightly when talking about Route 66 in the early 1990s. In those days, he’d cruise the strip in his ‘78 Ford Thunderbird Lowrider.
“Route 66 is the Mother Road, so that is the road that as a young man, I would cruise looking for future wives,” Lara said.
“Did you find them?” I asked.“I certainly did. Yes,” Lara replied.
“More than one?” I quizzed him.
“Yes,” he said, laughing.
I met Lara, a member of Espanola’s Ballers Choice Car Club, waiting for his kids to return with a spare part.
Lara has restored four cars during his travels on the iconic road including a 1948 Fleetline named “Pink Liquor” customized in tribute to his former wives.
His next restoration project is even more dear to him — his mom’s car. She followed the horse races from town-to-town with a young Lara sleeping on the back dash.
“She passed on about three or four years ago, and it was the first car she ever bought new. And I used to curl up on the back dash and sleep on it while we followed the racetrack around,” he said.
William Demorest, from Copperas Cove, Texas, moved to Albuquerque 11 years ago. He brought the family’s Ford Fairlane that his great-grandfather bought in 1956. In 2003, his father passed the car to him as a high school graduation gift.
That was 16 years ago. He took the car apart and restored it recently with the help of his daughter, Ivalisse.
“She’s my passenger, my ride or die, if you will,” Demorest said.
Ivalisse said she likes the results.
“It is just really nice getting to share the pride with him and going out on those shows and being there with him.”
Many of the vintage car enthusiasts here are aging. Car club members are mostly in their fifties, sixties and older. Ivalisse, who is 26-years-old, says that doesn’t prevent her from enjoying the history and community that Route 66 cultivates.
“Well, I'm a little bit younger, but I think it's fun, kind of just mingling with older generations and having like that form of sense of community,” she said.
As organizers called the drivers to begin their short drive to the exhibit location, Wasson stressed the importance of Route 66’s living history.
“I think it's important. I mean it's 100 years. We’ve been going on 66, and it's not history, it’s heritage, it’s ancestry. So, it’s just something we need to keep going and keep growing,” Wasson said.
