Featured Image – Cars And Coffee by: Ben Youngerman
BETHLEHEM, PA—It’s time to rev up your engines as hundreds of cars, trucks and motorcycles fill the SteelStacks campus this spring and summer during the monthly Cars & Coffee Lehigh Valley series presented by Chevrolet 21. The series returns for its exciting sixth season starting April 22, 9 a.m.-noon.
A free event for the community, Cars & Coffee encourages car enthusiasts from throughout the region to come together for a fun-filled morning featuring up to 500 different vehicles of all makes and models. Last year, the series drew more than 20,000 visitors to SteelStacks throughout the year.
“It’s the participation that makes this event so successful,” says Cars & Coffee Lehigh Valley Co-founder Dan Kendra. “Once a month car enthusiasts can separate themselves from their daily patterns and jump into their vehicles and express themselves the way they want. It is human nature to express ourselves in multiple ways. Some choose machines of power and speed. For me, personally, these machines are all about emotion.”
At the May 20 Cars & Coffee, the ArtsQuest Center’s first floor will feature a custom-built Tucker 48 created by Rob Ida of Ida Automotive in New Jersey, along with a member – Sean Tucker – of the family from which the car takes its name.
Hailed as the car of tomorrow when it debuted in the late 1940s, only 51 original Tuckers were built before the company closed in 1950. Today, the car is prized by collectors, with one of them selling at a Barrett Jackson auction in 2012 for almost $3 million and another on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
A custom coachbuilder, Ida has worked on eight Tuckers over the years, some originals and some built from scratch. As part of the May Cars & Coffee, he’ll display a newly completed custom Tucker, owned by Jack and Carolyn Keily, owners of “Traffic Plan” in Bethlehem. To celebrate the occasion, Ida and Tucker will take part in a special screening of the 1988 Francis Ford Coppola film “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” followed by a talkback on the making of the car and the Tucker legacy May 20, 11 a.m., in the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas. Tickets for the screening are $7.50 for ArtsQuest Members and $10 to the public; they’re on sale now at www.steelstacks.org.
Dates for the 2018 Cars & Coffee Lehigh Valley events are:
April 22, 9 a.m.
May 20, 9 a.m.
June 24, 9 a.m.
July 15, 9 a.m.
Aug. 26, 9 a.m.
Sept. 16, 9 a.m.
Started by local car enthusiasts Kendra and Dr. Johnny Chung as a way to bring car collectors together in a fun, relaxed atmosphere, Cars & Coffee showcases a diverse array of muscle cars, hot rods, vintage collectibles and other vehicles at PNC Plaza and other locations on the SteelStacks campus.
In addition to strolling aisles upon aisles of vehicles, attendees can also purchase light breakfast options including breakfast sandwiches, muffins and coffee at the Mack Truck Stop at the Levitt Pavilion, and check out vendors like Jack Williams Tire Co., Caravan Cigar Company, DonutNV and more. For more information on Cars and Coffee Lehigh Valley, visit www.steelstacks.org/carsandcoffee.
Information provided to TVL by:
Mark Demko, ArtsQuest
http://www.artsquest.org/
