ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — This Father’s Day, dozens of families headed out to the National Museum Of Transportation for the Cars With Class show.
It featured lots of classic cars and even pieces of St. Louis history like a delivery truck from Dorris Motors.
“There’s a gear-driven water pump and then it would be a gear-driven generator on the back side of it,” Andy Dorris said.
Dorris said his grandfather’s business only made 600-800 of them. He spent a lot of time restoring the one he brought to the show.
“If you need a part for this one you have to manufacture them. I have a son that made me some 3D parts,” Dorris said.
The president of the Horseless Carriage Club, Joseph Yochim, said even though classic car restoration has a pretty high price tag the memories are priceless.
“You can’t put a value on that million-dollar smile your child will give you when you have that wow moment,” Yochim said.
For this group, the time they cherish is spent under the hood of an engine or in the Thurmond family’s case seven different engines of cars they rebuilt together.
“He bought a 30 Model A some 46 years ago, I’m thinking, and we just loved it and then we saw something else and we picked up that pickup truck fixed it up and it just kept growing,” Jim Thurmond said.
Their red truck has quite a story that Walter Thurmond loves to tell.
“I owned an appliance store at the time. The guy comes in to buy a stereo and didn’t have the money for the one he wanted and he said but I’ll tell ya I got an old truck. So we ended up swapping I took the truck he took the stereo,” Thurmond said.
The third-generation car enthusiast Austin Thurmond says it only took a little elbow grease and a lot of love to restore this truck.
“Standing inside where the engine is helping grandpa sand the firewall when I was about 12 years old,” Austin said.
And on this Father’s Day, Austin cherishes this day and all the ones before it with his dad and granddad.
“From the day I turned 16 pulling in the lot and the woman said ‘You’re going to go… Honey, are you old enough to drive this car?’ I said, ‘Yes ma’am I’m 16 and I’m here with my family.’ So that’s it for me is just seeing everyone’s faces when the Thurmond's come together with all their cars,” Austin said.
