A new weekly event will begin this Sunday morning for the Soo Line Cruisers Car Club - Cars & Coffee.
Club President Jarrod Stroeder said the idea came from one of their new members.
"So we're rolling with it and we're going to be meeting in the Canadian Tire parking lot on the far east side, right by Tim Horton's, every Sunday starting May 11th, and it's going to be from 9 to 11 a.m. There's a lot of people that go for coffee on a Sunday morning and so we thought, well, why not kind of merge both of them and have a little bit of a of a hang out with our cars and also be able to get some coffee and see your friends on a Sunday morning."
This is with the permission of the store, from where those in attendance will walk over to Tim's to get their coffees.
"We didn't want to park in the Tim Horton's parking lot because in case the attendance gets pretty high, we don't want to take over that entire parking lot for the morning because there's a lot of in-and-out traffic there. So we wanted to kind of be respectful of that and protect our vehicles at the same time."
Stroeder noted this could be seen as a smaller-scale version of a car show.
"It's just kind of like a hangout, and if you don't have a car, you can come and walk around and look at the cars and talk to us. It's a great opportunity to ask us questions about our vehicles."
He said there are only about 10 cars confirmed for the first event, however, anyone who has a vehicle is welcome to bring theirs and chat with the members and maybe even consider becoming a member of the Soo Line Cruisers Car Club.
While their Show & Shine event is covered by generous community sponsorship, the club's monthly meetings are held at the Weyburn Legion on Tuesday Wing Nights. Membership is $40, with fees going toward renting the meeting space, a storage unit for old memorabilia and car show supplies, and insurance through the SAAC.
During their meetings, they plan events for the club, including the new Cars & Coffee. As the club is becoming more events-based, the members have collectively chosen a handful of larger car shows throughout southern Saskatchewan this year, to which they will travel together as a group.
"Soo Line Cruisers is very inclusive and we have members that have new cars, old cars, expensive cars, less expensive cars, motorcycles, too. We're very inclusive, and one of the staples of our club is to be as positive as possible. If someone did have questions about how to detail their car properly or how to make it look good, most of us would be happy to talk to that person about it. We've all been there, and we all take pride in our vehicles and doing things like detailing is part of the hobby, and part of the car culture is to make things look good."
"If you had questions or didn't know if anyone had questions or didn't know how to properly clean a car or maintain something, that's what our club is for to help people out with that as well."
Stroeder said the Cars & Coffee event should attract non-members who are already car enthusiasts.
"We've noticed that there are a lot of people that are currently restoring cars and building cars on their own, and there's not a whole lot of information out there on very specific things that you might want to be learning about. So sometimes it really pays off to talk to someone like myself, who's built a car and could help save them some of the struggles that I went through or some of our other members have gone through in building their cars."
Stroeder inherited his 1968 Chevrolet Impala, 'Jonnie' from his great-grandfather. He started with a complete frame-swap restoration, lifting the body off of the frame, and then replacing it with a donor frame he was able to locate. He then replaced all of the car's suspension components, after which 'the snowball effect' took over, with a new interior (foam and upholstery) done locally, cleaning and upgrades to the engine, and a new paint job at East-Wey.
"The next thing, a weekend project turns into a three-year restoration," he shared. "I needed to replace an upper-rear control arm, and finding one of those is like impossible. So I had to actually go on a Facebook group and find a guy who was selling a used one in Oklahoma. So I bought it from him and he mailed it to me so that I could put it in my car because it was the exact match for the other side that I needed. There are little things like that. Some things are really easy to find, and some things are almost impossible. There's a little pull knob for my headlights to turn my headlights on and off, that's one of the rarest pieces ever for a '68 Impala. You just can't find that mechanism, so you have to buy it used off someone who also had a '68 Impala that when he was scrapping his car decided to take that piece out and save it to put online to sell."
He said despite so many options during the restoration process, he wanted to stay as true to the car's original classic stock.
"Just out of respect for what it was and my great grandpa, who owned this car originally."
Another event coming up for the club is their first Care Home Cruise of the season, being held in the afternoon on Sunday, May 25th.
"The Weyburn City Police are going to help us through some of the intersections again this year," he noted. "We're hoping this will be our biggest year yet. Last year we had 44 cars for our Care Home Cruise, so it was a pretty long train and this year we're hoping to get even bigger."
Specific details will be forthcoming on routes and times. Check the club's Facebook or Instagram pages to stay posted on the event.