Behind the wheel of classics

A common sight on the square during the summer in Mt. Pleasant is the car cruise.

Some interesting characters are among the crowd. Showing off their pride and joy, the consummation of hundreds of hours in the engine bay, and most of all their prized possession.

Jeff Kerr, the owner of a 1965 Chevy El Camino, is one of those characters. Kerr has been coming and showing cars since 1973, when he showed his first car at a car show. The license plate read “B4rKids” since the couple had the car a few years before their children.

Kerr enjoys coming out to car shows for the camaraderie and atmosphere along with the “gawking” he gets from onlookers

"It gets people, especially younger people involved,“ Kerr said. ”You walk through here, and every car has one thing that makes it different than all the others, and somebody’s made them different.“

“That’s the fun part, the engineering that they put into doing some of these things, so you got to love it.”

Along with enjoying the atmosphere, Kerr loves working on cars, especially older cars that in his opinion, “are easier to work on than the new stock models.”

“I just like the looks of them, the sound of them, and their easy to work on, I just have a ball with it all,” Kerr said.

Another “car guy” Drew Schumacher is the owner of a 1963 Dodge Dart. He collects vintage cars because he likes older cars, with a more unique feel than newer cars.

“It’s an old generation, in a new generation time. I like unique things and old things have this uniqueness about them. In the newer stuff there isn’t as much uniqueness,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher makes his way to car shows to hang out and to see other people’s pride and joy.

“We all are car guys and car gals, we just like hanging out and showing what we have [cars] and seeing the uniqueness of everyone's own build,” said Schumacher.