BLACK EAGLE — If it’s a weekend in or around Great Falls, you’re likely able to find a car show, but it’s the people that attend these shows, as well as the cars that they bring, that bring out such unique stories.
On Sunday, the Black Eagle Community Center hosted their sixth annual “Car Show and Shine”.
“Yeah, it’s a yearly thing we do up here at the community center. Bring in new faces, old faces, old cars, all of the above,” said Greg Schoby, General Manager of the Black Eagle Community Center.
When you attend a car show, you can count on three things: fuzzy dice, novelty license plates, and unique stories.
“My sister used to have a ’67 Camaro Rally Sport SuperSport,” said John Mahollan, next to his own 1996 Nissan Skyline GTR R33. “So growing up with that and her having it, going to car shows as a kid, stemmed from about when I was about 9 years old.”
Mahollan’s car took a year to restore in Japan, but he loves the feel of it, saying the car was popularized by “The Fast and the Furious” and PlayStation era video games. Because it is a Japanese car, his steering wheel is on the right side.
“A lot of the drivers, they look over to my [sic] left and they see me right here,” Mahollan said with a laugh.
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Some car owners, such as Tom O’Hara, have stories that date back much further.
“Well, 30 years ago it was a farm truck that came out of Conrad, and I completely restored it from the ground up,” said O’Hara, standing in front of his 1938 Chevrolet Half-Ton Pickup Truck.
Towed behind the truck was a matching 1948 Modernistic Teardrop Cam Trailer. It is a family vehicle owned and maintained by a family man.
“It’s a family affair,” O’Hara said regarding the restoration project.
Written on the door is O’Hara’s name, alongside his late wife Jerri and their daughter, Becki.
On the door panel are the names of his son, son-in-law, and grandchildren. The camper has a quilt made by his daughter. The pickup bed is filled with old toys from the family that have stories of their own.
“The little pedal car was my grandson’s when he was a year old, and he just graduated from Carroll College,” O’Hara said. “The trike was my granddaughters when she was a year old, and she’s married and lives in South Carolina.”
Although Tom has been without Jerri for the past five years, she lives on through the car. O’Hara says that she had just as much fun with it as he did.
“Oh yeah,” O’Hara said, “Like all the coffee cups and all that, she researched finding all of those to get the ones with the green across the top because most of them are blue and she wanted the green to go to the same color as the truck.”
Old cars, high in both mileage and memories. It’s the power of a good car show.
Follow the Black Eagle Community Center’s Facebook page here.
