'Grinding gears for 53 years': Capaha Antique Car Club members came together to ‘talk old cars,’ cruise and reminisce

Yellow shirts and black jackets advertising Cape Girardeau's Capaha Antique Car Club read "Grinding Gears for 53 Years." The club emphasizes community and tradition, with a touch of nostalgia for cars that aren't just machines and other group members who become more like family than friends.

The Capaha Antique Car Club holds events throughout the year, including a swap meet at Cape Girardeau's Arena Park in February and a car competition in Jackson's City Park on July 4, as well as monthly meetings and "Cruise-ins."

Cruisin' Uptown Jackson is scheduled for the courthouse square at 5 p.m. April 8.

The club also offers a modest scholarship for a post-high-school student wanting to pursue training in automotive work, said president Dan Brown.

Member Ken Harper said when he joined in 1996, it was basically because he loved old cars.

Melvin Uelsmann's 1965 Mustang convertible.Andrew J. Whitaker

"I always loved old antique collectible cars," he said, adding he didn't have one when he first joined.

"Little by little I began to buy cars. I sold a few -- still got a few more to sell as far as that goes," he said, laughing.

Harper said he had met a few members at car shows, and they had invited him a few times to join.

"I was hesitant for a while because I didn't have an antique car, but they informed me that I didn't have to have one and would never have to, I could join the club and enjoy everything they have to offer."

Harper said the group has become like an extended family.

"If I had a car problem, a breakdown, if I called them, they'd do whatever I needed. Even if I needed advice, it's free to offer."

Harper, a retired Church of the Nazarene minister, said he bought one of his vehicles, a 1937 Cadillac Seville, from a gentleman in Piedmont, Missouri, where Harper had lived before moving to Jackson.

"He was a mechanic in business in town there with his boys," Harper said, until he retired from his mechanic's shop in 2000. The mechanic and a former classmate rebuilt the car's engine and did a frame-up restoration of the car.

"Took them seven years," Harper said.

Harper said he'd gone to a car show in 2007 and there the car was, but he was told it wasn't for sale. Then in 2010, he had friends tell him the car was for sale, and after some back and forth, he purchased it that summer.

"I knew what shape it was in, what kind of work they'd done to it," he said.

Member Melvin Uelsmann said he enjoys the friendships he's made in the club, as well as working on his 1965 Mustang convertible.

He traded the car with a friend in the car club after they worked out the deal at the club's Christmas party 35 years ago.

"He came in, told me he had a car I needed, I told him I had a car he needed," Uelsmann said. After they talked about what they each had, Uelsmann thought the 1962 Chevy convertible he had would work out as a good trade for his friend's 1965 convertible.

"I had to restore it," he said. The Mustang had been in storage, sitting for a long time, he said, and "I had to completely go through and restore the whole thing," he said, naming body work, a new top and eventually down the road changing the motor in it. He also did interior work and redid the body paint.

"It wasn't real bad but it needed quite a bit of work," he said.

Uelsmann said he does most of the work himself.

"I never did go to school to do any body work but my son did, he went to Nashville to a body school, works at a body shop now," he said. "Helped me along, too. But I've done most of it myself."

Bill Dunning, vice president of the car club, said his father was one of the charter members in 1963.

"He signed me up when I was a kid, I guess," he said, adding he's probably the second oldest member of the club.

"It's just visiting with people who have old cars, talking old cars, getting together and having lunch," Dunning said. "It's a family thing. We enjoy getting together."

Dunning's vehicles all have a story, he said. The third car he ever bought was a 1959 convertible, and he thinks he bought it in 1965.

"It's part of the family," he said. "I wouldn't sell it, or my dad's Model T."

Dunning said his father bought the Model T from the original owner in 1960.

"I still have it," he said. "I'll give that one to my son eventually."

Dunning said while club members enjoy talking cars, they also get together to work on each other's vehicles.

"Just worked on a club member's car today," Dunning said. "They come to me when they need something like that, I pretty well know how to do everything a little; I can get by."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630