Cars and their owners make car show memorable

The skies may have been cloudy Sunday morning as set up started for the 54th annual Fallbrook Vintage Car Show, but spirits were still high. Cars lined up early to get out on the green at Pala Mesa Resort. Spots were first come first serve, and the spaces near the front of the show seemed to be coveted.

"I got here just before six. They were officially opening the field to cars at six o'clock. If you want to get a spot close to the front, you come early," said Pam Frisbie, who brought her 1965 Marlin to the show.

Cars of all shapes, sizes, and colors were on display, bright and early. People showed off their vehicles with pride. Cars from the 1910s sat parked just across the way from cars from the 1990s, with just about every decade covered in between.

"Every car has its story," said Larry Feece, owner of a 1910 Brush.

Some of the cars in the show even share parts of Fallbrook's more recent history, such as the 1968 Buick owned by the Latimer family, that burned in the 2008 fires.

"The Buick is my dad's, and he always wanted to restore it. He did slow work on it, and we got it to a point where we had just finished the painting process," said Cy Latimer, who showed the car early this morning. "Then the '08 fires came through and burned up a whole lot around my house, and that set us back another four years until we got it done again. It's my dad's baby."

The car has been featured in the show every year since.

The cars had great stories, but it was clear that there was a certain amount of work that had to be done before the stories could be told.

"[It's] a work in progress," Feece said about his 1910 Brush, "because it didn't run when I got it, and it takes a long time to make friends with these old cars. And that's what it is, is making friends with them, because you've got to learn how to start them, and how to drive them, and what they like, and what they don't like."

The time spent preparing depends on the car and the kind of work it needs. Mike Socha spent four to six hours the day before the car show readying his 1915 Model T Touring for the show.

"I'll have to shine the brass, check the tires, check the oil, and all that kind of stuff," Socha said.

Other cars like Frisbie's 1965 Marlin, often take weeks to prepare.

"You go out and spend a couple hours, and then go out the next day and spend a couple hours. When you come back to it, you can see a little spot or something that can be better. You can polish something just a little bit more," Frisbie said.

Even after weeks of planning and polishing, it was clear that the stars of the show weren't just the cars, but the people that owned them.

"Everybody's got a different story, so it's fun. You don't know who you're going to meet, or what you're going to find out. It's exciting," said Keene Brewer, who brought his 1912 Abbott-Detroit to the show. "The cars get you together, but it's the people that really make the thing happen."