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Almost 50 antique cars – dating from 1920’s and earlier — rolled in to Oriental for a midday visit Tuesday. The pace was leisurely.

This antique car was behind most of the pack, and inching up the Oriental Bridge moments before it got some more power and coasted down .

The Little Car That Could… breathe easier once over that crest.

The NC Horseless Carriage Association, a group of antique car enthusiasts is holding its annual gathering in New Bern this week, and Oriental was one of the day-trip destinations. On Tuesday, about 45 cars made the trek to Oriental. They left at 8 in the morning, sought out the back roads and arrived in town around 12:30pm.

Model T’s and other Fords and non-Fords rolled down the bridge’s hill in the noon-hour.

A sportier model.

Little reduction in speed needed.

Some drivers — and passengers — said that the bridge provided a nice breeze, but on the flat ground, the air was still and the freon-based air conditioning, still decades away. Hand-powered fans were deployed by Rae Garrison of Fayetteville and others in her family’s black Ford.

After arriving in Oriental via the bridge, the Horseless Carriage drivers and passengers had lunch at Brantleys and later parked their cars at Lou Mac Park and answered questions about them. Then they headed back to New Bern, this time, up Highway 55 and, what seemed a daunting thing for some of the participants, taking their cars at 35 miles an hour, over the Neuse River Bridge.

A photo essay of the cars’ — and drivers’ — visit to Oriental follows:

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One of the first to arrive at Brantley’s was this 1926 Buick, which got a spot in the shade.

Christy Serls of Warrenton, behind the wheel of her 1926 Buick, was one of the few women in the group who did the driving. Here, her husband Eddy takes a moment to relax after lunch.

Several of the drivers raised their cars’ hoods to let the engines cool after their 4 hour trip from New Bern. Garland Fulcher Seafood owner Sherrill Styron, who was leaving the restaurant at the time, suggested that on that hot a day — it was 93 degrees at 1pm – “everything needs to cool down.”

One car that got a lot of attention was a Marmon.

As Mary Ellen and Clay Thomas of Charlotte were passing by on South Avenue, we asked if that item on the windshield (obscured here) was a post-production GPS holder. We got this smile for an answer.

A local resident checks out the “Speedster.” Some other car enthusiasts noted that these did not come off a factory line but would’ve been pieced together from a Ford chassis and parts available from a Montgomery Ward or Sears catalogue. “Boys,” one man said, “have been boys for some time.” On Tuesday, however, that “Speedster” was driven by a girl…

16-year old Candice Vaughn says her grandfather built this car when he was her age. Asked when that was, she offers that it was a long time ago, as her grandfather is ‘really old’. Candice’s mother, Maxie, puts her father’s age at about 76, and says he would’ve gotten the idea for building the car out of a magazine of the time. Maxie says she grew up going to Horseless Carriage events with him. It’s a tradition that continues with Candice who first drove the “speedster” when she had just gotten her driver’s permit, at last year’s gathering of the Horseless Carriage group. Candice says she’d rather drive her grandfather’s car than the 1999 Jeep Wrangler she takes to school. The antique car, she says, is “more complicated,” and so, more interesting.

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One of several “depot hacks” that came to Oriental Tuesday. These were open vehicles with a second bench behind the driver’s bench. Beyond that, was an area to toss luggage after you were picked up at the train station, or depot, which gave the vehicle its name. Another name emerged in time: the station wagon.

Dick Cruickshank of Angier shows the three-pedal system on his 1913 depot hack to Oriental Mayor Bill Sage and Florence resident Ed Boden, who is restoring a Model-A himself. There may be three pedals on the floor, but they’re for maneuvering the gears. The expression “pedal to the metal” didn’t apply in these early vehicles. On this one, the gas control is on the steering column, looking like a modern-day windshield wiper control.

Bob and Jackie Shelton of Christianburg, VA on the running board of the 1925 Maxwell that more or less been in their family since it was new. Bob says his father acquired it from a relative in 1958 and would use it to ride in Christmas parades as part of a Beverly Hillbilly themed float. Family legend is that the car got a ding in its front fender from the first time the original owner, Ed McDaniel, drove it home. He found that yelling, “Whoa!” alone was not enough to keep the car from hitting the garden fenced.

In the interests of equal time amid all the Fords, a Chevy. Fords were clearly in the majority, owing to the fact that in those early years, there were many more of them built.

The plastic gas tanks and cooler were not even an option back then, but they do add a bit of color to Henry Ford’s black-sided vehicles. Owners we spoke to say the cars get about 15-18 mpg and comfortably do about 35 MPH.

A precursor to NASCAR?

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Ornamental touch on the hood of one car.

…and on a competitor.

Wheel, headlights, and crank on a Ford.

The reverse of how we do it now. The horn on some vehicles was on the floor. That left room on the steering column for the gas control.

Rearwindow view of the Stallings House.

The last thing you see on the Marmon.

Posted Thursday July 24, 2008 by Melinda Penkava