Platte City Cruise keeps hummin' along

Every third Saturday of the month, the bright orange water tower calls car enthusiasts like a beacon.  This is Platte City: home of the Outta’ Control Hot Rods monthly cruise.  It is the time where people pack up their hot rods and take the short trek up I-29 for a little Pizza Shoppe and a lot of fun.  But this month was a little tough for Platte City.   Intermittent rain showers and a bad forecast, plus a new event in North Kansas City all conspired to keep car count down.

But that didn’t keep a handful of determined car nuts from keeping the flame lit.  Even with everything against it, there were still some nice cars, Larry and the gang were still spinning the hits, and Pizza Shoppe was still serving dinner.  This cruise has really picked up momentum in the past year, so people will still get up here even if outside factors aren’t helping.

This was a neat little 1950 Ford F-1 pickup.  It was pretty original, and just looked like a truck that someone has been using and maintaining for more than 60 years.  The fanciest part about it was the wide whitewall tires.  It even still had what appeared to be the original flathead V8 under the hood.  This was the second year for the Ford F-Series, which is what Ford still calls their exceedingly popular truck line to this day.

This ’49 Chrysler sedan was also basically original, although it had obviously been lowered to give it sort of a ratty hot rod look.  Today, these have a nice, Art Deco styling influence, which reminds me of a contemporary console radio or other lavish piece of furniture that you might find in someone’s house after World War II.  But when it was new, the ’49 Chrysler was a bit of a disappointment.  In spite of a complete redesign that year, it was still relatively conservative compared to the competition.  People wanted extroverted, modern designs, and it took a few years for the entire Chrysler Corporation to catch up.

Here’s a ’73 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 limousine.  Cadillac used to build their own limos from the factory, so these weren’t stretched out by some aftermarket company like they are today.  Some rich people and business muckety-mucks would run around in these, but most of them were used as funeral cars.  This one had been painted green, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it started out life in ubiquitous black.  Some of these also had an open quarter window, but this one had the fully enclosed vinyl top treatment with fancy opera lights.

Even thought the crowd was lighter than normal, there were still some nice things to look at in Platte City last weekend.  These guys work really hard to put this event together each month, so I hope everyone continues to support it.  Check out the pictures below, or click this link for a nicer version.