By Larry Strawther
Part two of two.
Last week, Part one covered the car show’s first ten years (1988-1997), beginning as a small addition to the Old Town Business Association’s annual Sidewalk Sale, to its growth under Stephen Bruce, Bob French and the Bay City Rodders Car Club into the town’s largest event.
In 1998 Business Association President Stan Anderson volunteered himself as the 1998 event co-chair (“I had to make amends after what I did in 1997,” he joked), but he again had key help from Kim and Steve Masoner and Dennis Pollman. “Dennis always had a car at the event anyway. Of course, much of that was for his insurance business. He’d get in car shows and then pass out his cards because he specialized in classic car insurance.”
Kim Masoner owned Sandcastle Marketing in town and gained more publicity for the cars show in the regional newspapers like the Times, Press-Telegram and Register. She also made the Sun realize the event was a great opportunity for them as well – organizing local merchants in 1998 to advertise in a car show center spread for the first time. The ads included such remembered local institutions as The Shore Shop, the Seal Beach Inn, the Seal Beach Car Wash, and Russell’s Hamburgers.
Anderson gives all the credit for the show’s continued success to his board which included the Masoners, Robin Fairman, Beverly Rigney and Pat Eskenazi.
By summer 1999 Kim Masoner had become executive director of a revived and reorganized Chamber of Commerce and organized a merger of that group and the downtown merchants into a single group, the Seal Beach Chamber & Business Association. The new group now organized events such as the Holiday Parade, Summertime Music on Main Street, the September Sand Castle Contest, and the Halloween on Main Street, as well as the bi-annual Sidewalk Sales and the annual Classic Car Show.
“Besides her marketing skills, Kim also did a good job in getting better cars,” remembered Steve Masoner, “She made it so applicants had to submit a photo of their car, so we could be more selective.”
Steve also recalls Kim hiring established local artists to get better looking posters. “Unfortunately those earliest posters and other car show documents were stored in a container at First Street and were ruined when the container leaked during a heavy rain storm.”
Steve remembers his main contribution as loading in cars from six entry points instead of just Ocean and PCH. “This way our crew could start loading cars a couple hours later, minimizing the engine revving before 8 a.m., which I’m sure the residents appreciated. We also tried putting cars back to back in the center of the street to see if that would improve traffic flow.”
By 2003, newspapers were saying the event had grown to 30,000 attendees, with many driving their cars into town and struggling to find a spot. Early organizers had alleviated this in 1991 by arranging with the Rossmoor Shopping center to operate a shuttle bus from their lots to Old Town and back. In subsequent years additional shuttles operated from the Rockwell (now Boeing) lots, as well as from the Alamitos Bay restaurants and most of all, to parking sites on the Navy base. This changed with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Parking was not allowed on the Navy Base in 2002, a shortage not unnoticed by some local merchants. Some on Main Street but most at the Seal Beach Center, asked the City Council to not approve the Car Show on Main Street. But public comment from residents and other merchants at council meetings in 2003 and 2004 convinced the Council to approve what was now the town’s biggest event of the year.
By 2004 the Masoners were focusing their volunteer energies to the Save Our Beach non-profit, so local chiropractor Brian Glowacki stepped in as co-lead organizer in 2003. In 2004, Joann Adams, owner of Bogart’s Coffee and one of the local merchants who spoke in favor of the car show, took the reins and held the post for three years. “For my first year I had a co-chair who went home to sleep during the car show and never came back. That was fun.”
The next year Joann recruited the help of local mechanic Brian Warner, owner of Brian’s Automotive Service. “I moved my business to town in 2001 and I started entering the car show then. And then Joann asked me to help out, so I did.” For Warner, it was a labor of love. “I’ve been a car guy for over 50 years,” he later told the Press-Telegram, “and I personally worked on a lot of cars that were seen in the show.”
Another local car show regular over the years was Bob Griffith, long-time owner of Bob’s Rexall drug store and much of the 300 block where he stores many of the cars he has shown over the years. Probably best known among these is the NASCAR stock car once driven by Jeff Gordon.
Warner took over as the sole event chair in 2008 and he says his main contribution was increasing the categories for awards. “You can’t compare a Rolls Royce to a 57 Merc. They’re different animals and should be compared against similar cars.” Another benefit from more trophies was it got more local businesses involved as trophy sponsors.
But the biggest reward for Warner is the event’s importance to the community and town’s economy. “I love to see my small business neighbors really do well – the stores, restaurants and pubs and ice cream and coffee shops.”
Under Warner the show grew to well over 600 cars, although he cut that back a bit after a year. “It was getting too crowded, and we wanted to give people a little more room to walk.”
In 2011 Warner gained the assistance of Vince Bodiford who had come to town as the new Publisher of the Sun. Bodiford, a big-time car buff himself, recalled that, “As a publisher you always want to get involved with local business and events, and when I saw that the town had a car show, I made sure we got very involved with that.”
Bodiford took over the show’s reins in 2013, and immediately put his own stamp on the event by arranging for highlights of the show to be broadcast nationally on various cable networks covering motor sports.
Bodiford also reached out to the Bay City Rodders to see if they were interested in again helping run what they had helped start. “That didn’t go anywhere. Some members would still show their cars in the SB show, but there was not much interest beyond that.” It turned out the Rodders’ numbers were dwindling and they would soon end their involvement with the Belmont Shore show.
In 2017 Bodiford and his group, led by local uber volunteers Deb Machen and Seth Eaker, revived a vintage Motorcycle area – this time at the Pier. The Vintage Motorcycle show featured 75 brands from Europe, Japan and, of course, classic American Harley Davidsons.
When Bodiford left town to head up a midwestern newspaper syndicate, Tim Way assumed the chairman role, a post he held from 2018 to 2023. But he wasn’t alone, bringing back Brian Warner as his co-chair. The first two years didn’t miss a beat, and the 2020 show was also a sell out until Covid forced the cancellation of that year’s show. 2021 started out equally rough, but the crew pivoted to run a very successful Classic Car Cruise in October 2021.
2022 saw a return to normalcy, with car sell-outs and big crowds returning to Main Street, a feat repeated in 2023.
For 2024, Way and Warner have allowed the show’s reins to pass on to Gary and Diana Bean, who bring a lot of experience running the Chamber Health Expo and other events to the table.
In addition to the Lions pancake breakfast and hot dog and burgers lunch, other activities now include live music throughout the day from bands on three stages, fun and interesting vendor and nostalgic displays, a Pinewood Derby, and even celebrity appearances,
Actual attendance is hard to gauge, but Seal Beach police have estimated it as between 25,000 to 35,000 over the years. What’s not hard to estimate is the financial impact of the event which provides nearly 60% of the Chamber’s annual revenue. In addition to event costs, it also helps pay for other Chamber community activities such as the summer concert series, and holiday parade.
Most of the show’s revenues come from the car space fees and t-shirt sales which are usually sold out by noon, according to Warner. The vendors around the event provide a significant contribution as well.
The car show is also the second largest fundraiser for the Seal Beach Lions Club which annually feeds around 1,000 people and now takes in more than $5,000.
Another beneficiary of the show’s crowds is the Seal Beach Animal Care Center which raises around $2,000 from selling baked goods at the Car Show. Other nonprofits which have benefited include Interval House, Casa Youth Shelter, Seal Beach Tree Project and the Save Our Pool campaign to help improve the McGaugh School pool.
Over the years, there have been the predictable complaints from a very small minority of people, but they are drowned out by those who appreciate the event’s positive impact on the town.
And although it is a Chamber event, the organizers are the first to say it takes an entire to village to put on this show. It couldn’t be done without the help of well over 100 volunteers, city staff, and members of the public works, lifeguards, and various other departments.
Who would have thought that around 50 hot rods on Main Street in 1988 would turn into the city’s biggest annual event and the largest beachside car show in California?
