Cars in the Park
September 14,2024

At 8:00 am on Saturday, September 14, 2024 the gate to History Park opened for the 24th annual Cars in the Park. Shortly thereafter started the flow of antique and classic vehicles, early day gas engines plus crafts and collectibles participants and entertainers in addition to all the volunteers. There was a wide variety of brands and models, many of which do not exist today. Thanks to the dedicated owners and restorers who maintain these by-gone vehicles who are willing to show them to the public. Fourteen Dodge Brothers provided a great showing of featured vehicles. There was a great showing of Model As that filled the plaza road and a large number of Chevrolets. Some of the rarer brands displayed were a 1899 Osen & Hunt, a 1910 Oakland, two Pierce-Arrows, a 1903 Hayes Apperson, 1911 REO, 1914 Metz, a couple of Mitchells, a 1907 International Auto Buggy, 1916 Detroit Electric along with Packards and Lincolns. The final count of participating vehicle was 131. History San Jose was very pleased with the number of paying visitors.

At 11:00 am our event announcer, Steve Bright, welcomed the participants and visitors to Cars in the Park and spoke about the activities that occurred that day. Among those activities were Dixieland music of the Rhythmaires, a video of the Dodge Brothers factory in 1918, the singing performance of the Fabulous JewelTones, the very popular, crowd-pleasing Model T put-together and ended with the presentation of door prizes to participants.

The featured event was the Model T put-together that occurred at 2:30 pm. Mike Hennessy was the put-together announcer again this year and he always makes this a very fun and interesting event. We were honored to have Cindy Chevez, (Santa Clara County Supervisor), and Matt Mahan, (mayor of San Jose) joining us for this event. The large crowd of visitors were treated to questions about Model Ts as the Model T was being assembled. The actual time to assemble the Model T was 13.09 minutes. The Model T started and then quit. A push start did not help the situation. A postmortem will be performed, but all-in-all the crowd was entertained. We thank Lynn Alens and the entire team for their dedication to this event.

This year the CitP event added new photo opportunities. At the Associated Gas Station there were three antique vehicles that visitors could take photos both outside the vehicles or inside. In addition, visitors could take photos standing outside or sitting inside a fire truck at the Empire Firehouse. For kids, a fire fighter vest and helmet were souvenirs of this activity.

The coordinators of this event, Peder Jorgensen and Allan Greenberg, with assistance from Maria Jorgensen and Lucy Greenberg want to thank the staff of History San Jose, Steve Bright, Mike Hennessy, Rob Guzzetta (official photographer), the SCVMTFC and non-club volunteers for all their assistance and support during the event.

And now, we will start to plan and work on CitP 2025.

Allan Greenberg

Click here for photos provided by Rob Guzzetta