700 Planters Row
$749,000
1513 Black Chestnut Drive
$755,000
2004 Seawind Lane
$1,249,500
2012 Kenilworth Lane
$599,000
1911 Pembroke Jones Drive
$749,000
2025 Pelican Reach Place
$769,000
1617 Landfall Drive
$2,195,000
1247 Great Oaks Drive
$3,450,000
1720 Drysdale Drive • 910-256-6111 • www.landfallrealty.com
36
WBM december 2017
T“THERE ARE A LOT of Ford and
Chevy guys,” he says. “I have a friend
that all he cares about are Pontiacs.
There’s the Corvette guys, the Mustang
guys, the Mopar guys. And there’s a few
of us oddballs that love Buicks. They’ve
always been well-engineered cars, kind
of a mix of practicality with a little bit
of plushness.”
The common denominator is a love
of older cars.
“I think there’s an underlying appre-ciation
of a time gone by,” says John
Andrews, who owns a ’66 Mustang con-vertible
he’s had for more than 30 years.
“For a lot of people, these hold a special
memory. Nothing can take the place it
has in their heart.”
Some are in it for the awards. They
own rare and expensive “trailer queens,”
cars that meet stringent requirements
for being as close as possible to original
condition. These are the automo-biles
that only see the light of day in
Concours d’Elegance, competitions for
absolutely pristine cars, or in the biggest
local shows. They often are investments,
and miles on the odometer mean dollars
off the value.
“All they’re going to do is take it
around to the big shows and win
awards, but they don’t dare drive them,”
McEachern says. “One nick in the paint
can be thousands and thousands of dol-lars
to fix.”
Tim Ward knows those cars exist —
“They only have 5 miles on ’em, and
that’s from rollin’ ’em on and off the
trailer,” he laughs — but he can’t think
of any in the Sun Coast Cruisers. Some
members own older cars but Ward,
the vice president, says the club mostly
caters to owners of American muscle
cars from the ’60s and ’70s. Or autos
modified to be muscle cars, like Ward’s
’52 Ford pickup with the 351 Windsor
engine.
“Most of our guys drive their vehicles
to shows,” he says. “Our guys roll in ours.”
That’s a common attitude. Even
though they have some age, these
cars were made to be driven, not just
looked at.