{"id":7406,"date":"2026-05-11T20:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/?p=7406"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:00:49","slug":"74-hours-in-kansas-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/74-hours-in-kansas-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"74 Hours in Kansas – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Car and Motoring Festival<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The car show at McPherson College is run by the C.A.R.S. Club. That acronym stands for College Automotive Restoration Students. Any student enrolled in the college can join. Their big event every year is the car show in the spring. It’s the reason for our trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, 507 cars were entered, so it’s quite a large show. To compare, the Colorado Concours d’Elegance draws a bit over 300 cars. The Barrett-Jackson Auctions I attended years ago drew over 600 autos. The emphasis at McPherson is on domestic autos – there were no Lotus, for example. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there was only a single representative of any given marque. Okay, okay, there were a lot of BMWs and a few Porsches. There were two cars there from the Soviet Union: a 1982 Zaporozhets and a 1988 Moskvitch. Both of these were student cars. I overheard the owner of the Zaporozhets saying he was still able to get parts, but only from Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was nice to be able to take a look at the classrooms\/workshops that the students worked in. The college continues to be the recipient of large donations, and this year, they unveiled their plans for significant upgrades in this building, resulting in about twice the floor space. There are about 300 students enrolled in the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were quite a few cars there that I’ve never seen before, including a trio of Cadillac concept cars. Concept cars are where the designers are showing off their wild ideas and aren’t particularly interested in actually putting them into production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a few antique cars were on display. I was looking at one of the student projects when I realized why we call the trunk of the car the trunk. Most of these early autos had no storage space at all, so there was a rack where you could carry your luggage. Specifically, a steamer trunk. Trunk! Get it? I finally did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the run-up to our trip, I was thinking this would be a one-and-done thing. It’s a long way to go over boring roads for a car show, and we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit when it comes to additional sights to see. But I’ll admit to pondering the possibility of going again in a couple of years just for the show. Can I do a “blitz” trip – drive the day before, enter my car in the show, and drive home immediately after the awards ceremony? Hmmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ran into LoCo members Steve and Julie, and after the show, met current LoCo member Mark and former member Doug for beers at Three Rings Brewery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that was it for Saturday<\/p>\n\n\n\n