Kmart Cruise-in
Wheels paid its first visit of the year to the Friday Night Cruise-in at the Kmart parking lot across from The Greene in Beavercreek, and with less than ideal weather, we still turned up a couple of pretty interesting pieces.
A huge flathead V-12 mounted on a trailer caught our eye, and before the first picture was taken, a fellow hopped on the trailer and started it up! The crowd began to gather around the trailer while the big engine just sat there, running as smoothly and quietly as you could ever want.
“The engine is ready, but the car isn’t, so I figured I’d break it in,” explained longtime car builder Denny Long of Beavercreek. “A buddy was saying that we had the stand and all — why not mount on the trailer and take it up to the cruise-in, so here we are.”
The engine is a 292-cubic-inch flathead out of a 1947 Lincoln. “The car should be ready in a month or so, but with a rebuild, you want the cam and the rings to seat well, so we’re doing this,” Long said. The engine is all stock, and the Lincoln, which Long found in a barn not two miles from his home, is also being returned to original condition.
Look for the Lincoln at the Friday night event sometime in June.
Our next find was a Regal Metallic Turquoise 1956 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery that was anything but stock, and it stopped us in our tracks. The stance, the wheels, the engine, the flat-screen TV in the back — this is not your run-of-the-mill cruise-in car.
“It only took me 26 years to finish it,” laughed owner and builder Don Sutton of Tipp City. “I bought it 28 years ago, and my brother and I worked on it off and on, but we finally finished it two years ago,” he said.
Sutton then decided he wouldn’t immediately drive the car, but rather take it on the car show circuit.
“The car was pretty much perfect, so we trailered it to about six or seven shows that season, and we did pretty good. We took some trophies and money, but now, it’s time to drive it and enjoy it, so last year I put it on the street.”
The Chevy Sedan delivery sports a 350-cubic-inch engine under the hood, with a four-barrel carb connected to a polished twin cold-air intake.
“I dropped in a four-speed manual transmission and connected that to a Posi-Traction rearend,” Sutton said. “It’s also got rack and pinion steering and four-wheel disc brakes.”
The Friday night cruise-in at the Kmart parking lot on Indian Ripple Road is co-sponsored by the Greene County Antique and Classic Car Club and the Miami Valley Chapter of the National Corvette Restorers Society. It runs from 5 p.m. until dusk, every Friday until Oct. 1.
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