Part one of two.
The Seal Beach Classic Car Show made its debut on Main Street on April 1988, with around 50 classic vehicles sharing space on Main Street with hayrides, other children’s rides, and vendor booths. But thanks to some vision, hard work and perhaps a little magic, it has grown into what’s now billed as the largest beachside car show in Southern California.
The event was originally just an inducement by the Seal Beach Business Association to get more shoppers for the Spring Sidewalk Sale. In fact, at the time it was almost an afterthought, according to the man who started it all, Steven Bruce.
In late 1987, Bruce, a local financial planner, was the newly-elected President of the Seal Beach Business Association, a group that splintered off in the 1970s from the Chamber of Commerce to focus on Main Street/Old Town business issues such as their semi-annual sidewalk sale, an event that had been declining in popularity.
“At one of my very first meetings as president,” recalled Bruce, “I pitched the idea of making the sidewalk sale more fun, more of a party, perhaps with a hayride, some food booths, and maybe even a car show. And then I said, ‘and we’ll also close down the street.’ Oh, did that get a response – you can’t do that! They won’t let you.”
Undeterred, Bruce went to the police and explained his idea. They and the city were fine – but because they would be closing “turn pockets” on PCH, a state highway, they had to get Caltrans approval. “It took a couple more weeks but we got the go ahead.”
“I was a car buff – I had a Jaguar XKE – but the only thing I really knew about car shows was that Seal Beach cop Rick Paap had introduced me to another car guy named Bob French. French, who lived in Downey, owned a 1960 Lincoln Continental Mark V convertible was a performing comedian and magician, a card-carrying member of the Magic Castle, but he also promoted car shows. “Bob got some flyers printed and handed them out at other car gatherings – and boom! we’re in the car show business.” French lined up some sponsors and even arranged to have some other cars brought in besides his Lincoln.
Bruce lined up the Lions to host a pancake breakfast and then hot dogs and burgers for lunch. “And we also got volunteer help that day from some other local car guys.”
Paap, who worked the show as a policeman for five years and as an emcee for another seven, remembers that first show well. “It was small – maybe only fifty cars – but everyone felt it was a success.” So successful the Association decided to do include a car show at the Fall Sidewalk Sale. That event, held on October 3, 1988, attracted over 125 classic cars.
“That show went well, too,” recalled Bruce. “But the spring show just seemed more fun, so we decided to just do the show once a year in April.” That decision forced Bruce to step back. “I do taxes, April is my busiest month, but I still helped out where I could – especially on show day. I loved the whole atmosphere, all the families and the moms resting with their kids on the sidewalks. The restaurants being busy. It was great.”
While a Business Association member served as co-chair to work with the city and handle permits, French stayed on as the primary organizer, but he was aided by the local car buffs who had now formally banded together a few months earlier as the “Bay City Rodders” car club. Many were Seal Beach city employees, including a few policemen and firemen and Jack Osteen of the Rec Department. Two of the key Rodders were policeman Pat Sullivan and fireman Don Mabe. Sullivan is now retired and lives in Arizona, but Mabe still lives in Seal Beach, and can be frequently found holding court and talking cars and at the Yucatan Grill or Marni’s.
“Don and I and George Steele used to meet up at Ascot Raceway in Gardena,” recalled Sullivan. “Don and I kept saying we should start a car club. Finally, we did it – and started meeting in the Public Works meeting room and then the police station.” It seems the first Seal Beach car show was the catalyst, because the group officially organized in summer 1988.
Both Sullivan and Mabe remember the first car show as kind of loose. “People just parked wherever they wanted,” said Sullivan. “But we knew car shows – at least the ones we liked,” added Mabe. “So we volunteered and took over the car stuff, assigning the car spots and loading them in an organized manner. Plus, we handled the trophies and awards.”
Sullivan said Mabe grew up in the Compton car culture so he knew all those guys growing up, plus he had built a lot of cars for those guys. He built the 1941 Willys that is on display at Rick Lorenzen’s Automobilia Museum near the old Lions Dragstrip site in Wilmington.
“We mainly left the applications, sponsors, and admin stuff to French,” said Mabe, “and he also got the flyers made up – although we did help distribute them. We’d drop them off at the car events we went to – like the Donut Derelicts who still meet every Saturday Morning at Adam’s Donuts in Huntington Beach.
“Next thing we know we’re up to 300 cars and it’s a great event,” said Mabe. “Cars right there on Ocean with the pier in the background and up and down Main Street and Central. On a sunny spring day. And the whole town comes out. It’s a big event, but it’s also so local. You would run into 100 neighbors and friends whichever way you walked.”
1992 saw French leaving to focus on his shows at Belmont Shore, Palm Springs and a new one at the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach. Mabe says the business association asked us to step in “so we basically ran the whole show for a couple years.” Part of French’s departure was due to a Business Association decision to keep the show as local as possible with only entries from Seal Beach residents or merchants accepted up to a couple months before the event. The number of cars was also limited to 400 and old newspaper photos show they were now lining up cars along the curbs of Main Street, allowing viewers to stroll down the middle.
Nonetheless, by now the event had gotten so big, the Business Association moved the Sidewalk Sale to March.
Stan Anderson, the owner of Coach’s restaurant, became president of the Business Association in 1994, and raved about the Rodders work. “They were great. The Rodders ran the show and we paid the bills and then split the profits. We’d use our profits to fund the Christmas Parade, and the Rodders donated their share to lots of groups around town.”
“It was a great arrangement,” said Anderson, “until I almost screwed it up. I made the mistake of appointing as co-chair a guy who owned a coffee shop and some property on the 300 block. Well, he thought he was in total charge of the show and came in and told the Rodders that we’re going to do things differently and basically wouldn’t even talk to them. Or at least that’s how they felt. I mean, the Rodders are all great guys. But somehow he ticked them off. So in February 1997, the Rodders President at that time, Bill Barger, tells me ‘We love the event, we love the city, but we’re not working with this guy. So good luck with the event but we’re out of here.”
“Fortunately, I got Dennis Pollman involved and he was able to obtain the mailing list from the Rodders, and Kim and Steve Masoner also stepped in and we salvaged the event that year but it was little rocky for awhile.”
The Rodders were gracious in their version of the parting. “We were getting older. It was a good time to move on,” said Mabe. “By then we had trained a lot of people on the best way to organize the cars.”
Not all of the Rodders got out of the car show business though. Some members continued to help Bob French with his Belmont Shore car shows – which at that time was a spring show at the beach and a fall one at Marine Stadium. After a couple years, French passed away and the Rodders took over the organizing and cut back to just one show a year, in the Fall on Second Street.
Next week, we look at the Car Show’s Second Decade and beyond. Note: this history is a work in progress being compiled for the Seal Beach Historic Resources Foundation. If you have additional information (or images) to add, please contact larrystrawther@gmail.com.
