Car enthusiasts search for right parts at swap meet

Joe Neville of Paducah, Ky., was on a quest, and he was joined by hundreds of people searching through everything from windshields to hubcaps at Arena Park on Sunday.

The crowds at the annual swap meet sponsored by the Capaha Antique Car Club came to buy, sell and trade parts on antique, classic and restored cars and trucks.

Neville came looking for parts for a 1939 Chevy that he is restoring.

"I'm hoping to find it cheaper here," he said as he walked from one vendor's table to the next lugging a box of parts with him.

Neville likes the swap meet in Cape Girardeau partly because of its timing. The meet is always held the third Sunday in February. "It's springtime and people are getting started on their projects," he said.

Ken Rose didn't have many buyers Sunday for his later-model accessories. He was selling everything from wheel centers and tires to hubcaps, but mostly for trucks.

Rose doesn't restore cars himself but does travel the country attending swap meets as a vendor.

But sometimes even the vendors come to a show to trade parts, sell their excess and find what they need to finish a project. "You come looking for a bargain," said Jerry Hall of Brookland, Ark.

He was selling a 1957 nine-passenger Chevy and an assortment of parts and windshields. About 90 percent of the vendors are hobbyists who just come to trade their parts or sell off what they've collected in the past year.

"You can't always put your finger on" what a person is going to want at a swap meet. Some people come with a list of what they need to finish a project, others just to look.

"One man's junk is another's treasure, that's really true," Hall said.

More than 2,400 people attended the swap meet during the course of the day, and about 200 vendors had their wares on display.

Some vendors specialize in Chrysler or Ford parts while others sell parts for racing cars or just memorabilia. Matchbox cars and models of classic cars were scattered at several different vendors' tables throughout the park.

Recycling manuals

Jerry Garrett sat at a table filled with boxes of books and an assortment of Matchbox cars. Garrett, of Benton, Ill., sells repair manuals, parts manuals and instruction books for cars.

Sometimes Garrett sees a customer before they begin a restoration project, other times it's nearer the end of their work. Eventually, someone comes looking for information about the car.

Often Garrett is able to buy back the manuals after a customer finishes a restoration."We recycle a lot of them," he said. "We deal with all 100 percent original manuals."

Sometimes people come just for the memorabilia, like the 1959 El Camino bank that Judie and Charlie Herbst found.

The Herbsts are members of the car club and helped organize the booths inside the A.C. Brase Arena Building.

While the show usually ends around 2:30 p.m., the vendors put in a full day. Some arrive at the park with their trailers around midnight and just sleep in their trucks. Others come when the building is opened around 6 a.m., and begin selling then, Charlie Herbst said.

"At 4 a.m., they're out there with flashlights and generators. It's almost like it's daylight out there," he said.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126