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Vintage cars toured Southeast Iowa
The Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour’s stops included New London, Mt. Pleasant, Brighton, and Kalona over the weekend
MT. PLEASANT — The Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour wrapped up the month of September with their annual tour of Southeast Iowa which always ends with a commemorative run from New London to Brighton.
The tour’s home base throughout their adventures from Sept. 27-30 was in Mt. Pleasant where drivers would meet each morning at the Quality Inn for a briefing on events and routes.
Touring with a mission to “foster an understanding and appreciation of vintage vehicle touring while enhancing the economic and cultural vitality of the Southeast Iowa Region,” over 20 Brass and Vintage Era vehicles followed the lead of this year’s Grand Marshalls Phil and Millie Graber of Mt. Pleasant
Phil Graber sits on the Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour board and according to the organization, he is a lifelong car enthusiast that continually works on his car collection and other cars from a used car business he runs with his son.
His knowledge, shop space and tools served the Horseless Carriage organization well as he played a vital role in the restoration of the Red Flag Tour’s mascot vehicle the 1924 REO Firetruck and the Model T truck.
Additionally, Phil and Millie Graber are members of the Iowa Hawkeye Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club established in 1972.
This comes as no surprise considering Phil Graber’s first car in 1951 was a Studebaker convertible which he built in junior high and drove all the way through his graduation from college.
In 2018 Phil and Millie Graber also had their 1951 ¾ ton Greenhurst Farms Studebaker Truck named the 2018 Old Thresher’s Truck of the year.
After a scenic drive to the historic villages of Van Buren County including Keosauqua and Bonaparte Thursday, the tour wove through Wayland before stopping at the Kalona Fall Fest Friday.
“We had a fantastic car show come in here for about six hours,” Executive Director of the Kalona Historical Society Board Steve Reif said. “ … Those are high dollar cars. Those aren’t a bunch of old cars. They are elite in perfect condition.”
“Man, those cars are rare and pristine,” he said with amazement.
The group was met with excited spectators at every stop along the way including their final day of the tour which consisted of the commemorative run from New London to Brighton to remember the abolishment of the Red Flag Law in 1896.
It was in 1896 that the speed limit for motor vehicles raised from four miles per hour to 14 and motorists were not longer required to have someone wave a red flag ahead of their vehicles as they drove along.
When this change first took place motorists gathered to tour from London to Brighton in England to celebrate the change, so, now the Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour does their own version of that tour in Iowa.
Many motorists dressed in early 1900s costumes as they met in New London Saturday morning for breakfast provided by the Dover Museum in tandem with a fundraiser breakfast for New London’s Holiday Stroll.
Music and speakers kicked off the official tour before they made the trek to Brighton and concluded the tour with lunch at Brighton Lions Club.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com
