Tailfin coves down Memory Lane

SARATOGA SPRINGS - From the looks of the activity going on in the parking lot, you half-expect a gum-cracking waitress to be roller-skating down memory lane and right up next to your car window asking to take your order.

And not your ordinary car windows either. These painted metal bodies come in starmist silvers and patina ivorys, surf blues and burma greens, whose revving engines are the sounds of the past bursting through time, and where conversations revolve around things like V-8 engines, tailfin coves, customized grillwork, and something that sounds like “400 foot pounds of torque at 3,200 rpm.”

Across town, at the Saratoga Automobile Museum, a 1903 Weebermobile and a 1930 Duesenberg once owned by Tyrone Power are on display. Here, in Mr. Ed's parking lot however, they seem to be waiting for Chuck Berry to materialize out of thin air and perform his notorious duck walk to a bomp-da-bomp beat.

“This is my eighth year being involved in the Cruise-in,” said Eugene Sakos Jr., who everybody calls “Mr. Ed,” and runs things at Mr. Ed’s Ice Cream Station and Pizza, on Route 29.
The “Cruise-in” is a public gathering of classic autos, hot rods, muscle cars, and “just about every kind of car you could imagine,” says Sakos, seated quite appropriately, alongside a vintage Seeburg jukebox inside the shop. Above his head, the walls are lined with advertising signs of another era: Orange Crush, Tab and “refreshing Buckeye Root Beer.”

“We get about 75 to 150 cars every week and people come from all over the area,” said Sakos, "Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Greenwich. They come from everywhere.”

A few miles southwest down on Route 9, PJ’s Saratoga Style Bar-B-Q is prepared for its own Cruise-in.
“We accept cars from the baby boom years, between 1946 and 1964” said Carolyn Davis. “Of course, cars prior to 1946 are welcome. The cooler (looking), the better.”
An adjacent area is set up for summer evening dancing, where a DJ spins tunes.
The green-trimmed house across the large lot is a classic home preserved by the Davis’ in the nostalgic purity of the vintage 1940s and ‘50s. They have also decorated the interior with era collectibles, and provide private tours of the home.

“We’ve had Bonnevilles, Packards, customized ‘Vettes,” said Dean Titus, standing beside a sign announcing subs, salads and soups at his Memory Lane Cafe on Route 9 in Malta.
Opened in 1998, Titus is entering his fourth season as host of the classic cars cruise-in which he celebrates with his own classic collection that begins with his 1933 Dodge Pick-up.
When the weather is accommodating, the number of cars and spectators can be huge.
“One night we had 142 cars here,” Titus said, gesturing beyond the red-and-white checkerboard cloths covering the picnic tables. “We estimate that there were 500 to 600 people here that night,” he recalls of the exhibition of classic cars, custom and muscle cars, and hot rods, that splayed out into the yard and through the area in between the trees.

A DJ spins tunes vintage from the 1950s and ‘60s and the nostalgic atmosphere returns every spring for classic car owners and gum-cracking waitresses alike. And from the looks of things, it wouldn't seem to surprise anybody to see Chuck Berry duck-walking across the parking lot, guitar in hand and asking the timeless question that stops all time: Maybelline, why can't you be true? Oh Maybelline, why can't you be true? You've started back doing the things you used to do..."

by Thomas Dimopoulos
published in The Saratogian, May 2002