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Engines rev as Ridgewood Car Show hits 20 years
Thursday September 12, 2013, 4:18 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
The 20th anniversary of the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce Car Show attracted more vehicles and visitors than ever before, as well as a group of collectors whose devotion to their vehicles was an attraction in itself.
All the owners suffer from the “same illness,” fellow car collector and Chamber President Tom Hillmann said at the event. “This is like our golf.”
Likely because of the good weather, last Friday’s show attracted about 4,000 visitors, in addition to nearly 400 vehicles, including motorcycles, sometimes quadruple-parked along the closed-off streets of the Central Business District. This year, the oldest car, Hillmann noted, was a 1913 Cadillac Phaeton.
The show has come a long way. When Hillmann started the event with Paul Wilson, formerly of Ridgewood’s Brogan Cadillac, there were 15 cars.
Besides the shiny, often nostalgia-inducing vehicles, several visitors said they were also interested in – and sometimes envious – of the collectors themselves.
“These people have a lot in common naturally. It’s like a brotherhood,” said Glen Rock resident Dieter Wachter, a longtime show attendee.
Wachter said he believes that people who own these cars are just “a little bit more interesting in general.”
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