After a one-year hiatus, the 27th annual Cloverdale Car Show will be back this weekend, lining downtown Cloverdale on Sept. 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Upwards of 150 cars and trucks will be at this year’s car show and while this year’s showing is slightly smaller than previous years, Chamber Director Neena Hanchett said that more than ever before she’s seeing people sign up with rarer cars. One she hadn’t seen at the show before is a Kaiser, made between 1945 and 1953 before becoming Kaiser Jeep Corporation.
This year’s show will have a smaller footprint, but will also have informational tables, food booths, a pit stop with beer and souvenirs and more.
“It’s not cars on gravel and on dirt fields, it’s in town and beautiful,” Hanchett said.
After a year of canceled events and limited car shows, she’s hoping the Cloverdale Car Show will give gearheads an opportunity to show off the cars they’ve worked so hard on.
“I think it’s going to be a really sweet show,” she said.
So far, the farthest away someone is coming from is Idaho, with plenty of participants from Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties.
“People have stepped up — we didn’t know we could actually do it until maybe two months ago and our fingers and toes are already still crossed,” Hanchett said.
The car show is usually one of the big fundraisers for the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, but this year Hanchett said they’re just hoping to break even.
Unlike previous years, there won’t be a car cruise the Friday before the show, a permanent change for the chamber-organized event. Hanchett said that due to behavior during past cruises — namely people drinking while driving and not driving safely — the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce will likely be unable to secure insurance for future cruises.
“We can’t do it anymore and escape liability,” Hanchett said
While there won’t be a Friday night cruise as there has been in years past, people are encouraged to head out on Friday night to Friday Night Live. On Saturday morning, the Cloverdale Senior Center will be holding a pancake breakfast from 9 a.m. to noon. After the car show, the Alexander Valley Film Society is holding a twilight drive-in screening of “Wayne’s World” at the Cloverdale Citrus Fair. Tickets for the drive-in can be found here.
For more information about the car show, go here.
