Friday, August 19th and Saturday, August 20th
FREE Admission & Parking
For the first time in three years, the Downtown Napa Association and the Napa Valley Cruisers will host the Main Street Reunion car show on Saturday, August 20, and Show & Shine the Friday night before. “It’s been too long since we’ve been able to have our car show, and people have really missed it,” said Chris Butler, who is running the show for the Cruisers this year. Last spring, when it looked like COVID restrictions were finally being lifted, the hosting groups grappled with whether or not there was time to schedule a full-on car show, and decided there wasn’t. Wanting to do something rather than nothing, they planned a Show & Shine last October. Car owners quickly filled every available spot, and everybody was excited about getting together again.
Instead of getting together, what we got was rain. Almost eight inches of it. “I guess the good news is that we didn’t cancel it and then not get any rain. Eight inches pretty much cancels anything anybody is going to do,” said Allison Hallum, co-owner of Eiko’s, Napa Noodles and Eiko’s Oxbow, past president and current board member of the Downtown Napa Association. “This year, the show is on.”
Memories vary on when the first Main Street Reunion took place, but it was sometime in the late ‘90s. Except for a six-year hiatus about fifteen years ago, it’s been an annual event. And then COVID hit.
Main Street Reunion features 400 pre-1978 cars and trucks, and is the only show of its kind in Napa. Most of the cars are locally owned. “I’m always impressed to see how many really great cars there are, that I don’t know about, in Napa,” said Mike Phillips, who was the president of the Cruisers and ran the show for nine years, staring in 2013. As the show has grown in popularity, it attracts more cars from the Bay Area and the occasional car from Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.
“The Cruisers wanted to do a car show for years, but had trouble navigating through the red tape to pull it off,” said Craig Smith, Executive Director of the Downtown Napa Association. “When they first approached our organization, they challenged me to help get it off the ground. Turns out, they only needed me to handle the Three P’s: Permits, Police and Porta-potties. The Cruisers have always been able to deliver the cars.”
The crowds that come out to see the cars gets bigger every year, but it’s never too crowded. “The show covers seven blocks and a large parking lot, which spreads things out nicely,” said Smith.
Ten years ago, the Cruisers added a pre-show Show & Shine, the brainchild of Tammy Robinette, a Cruiser and former co-chair of the car show. “A Show & Shine event the night before the car show gives everybody another chance to see the cars in more of a party atmosphere,” said Tammy Robinette, president of the Cruisers. “People can check out all the great cars, enjoy something to eat and drink, plus listen to good music too. How great is that?” That first year, organizers thought they would be lucky if fifty cars showed up. There were 150.
Trophies are a part of every show, but the Cruisers can rightfully claim to offer thirty of the best-looking awards out there. “One guy somehow left the show without his award a few years back,” said Phillips. “We sent him a picture of what he had missed, and he and his wife drove here from Fresno the next weekend just to pick it up.”
Sponsored by Downtown Property owners through the Property Based Improvement District (PBID), Napa Valley Marketplace Magazine and the City of Napa. Without their generous support, the show would not be possible. Visit DoNapa.com for full details.
REGISTER YOUR CAR
Main Street Reunion $40 ($45 after August 1)
Show & Shine $20.
A portion of which will be donated to a non-profit group.
Applications are available at DoNapa.com OR 257-0322. The event is only open to ONLY 400 cars.