Photo by Daniel Jackovino The Wednesday night classic car show always draws a crowd to Broad Street. Pictured here is a 1973 Mach 1 Ford Mustang and owner Joe Vito, at left, with Aaron Tripoldi. See more cars on Page 3.
The classic car display on Broad Street, a Wednesday night summertime staple, had about 30 cars lined up last week.
As often the case, owners were more than happy to share information about their metallic pride and joys. Anthony Lopomo sat near his 2006 Cadillac DTS — DeVille Touring Sedan. The car debuted at the 2005 Chicago Auto Show.
“It’s one of only 60 made,” Lopomo said. “It was manufactured as a hardtop, but made into a convertible by Coach Builders Limited. That was the factory authorized to do the work. They didn’t take outsiders.”
He pointed to “Coach Builders Limited,” in chrome, on the car door.
“To make this into a convertible, the conversion was over $20,000,” he said.
Lopomo purchased his car in 2016 and would not say what he paid. He pointed to a wire wheel which protruded into a cone.
“Those are Texan wire wheels,” he said.
Joe Vito brought a 1973 Mach 1 Mustang he has owned for five years. He was especially enthusiastic about its refinements, saying he has been a professional car detailer for 50 years and is also a car show judge. He has owned seven or eight Mustangs.
“The rare part about this car is that it has a Cleveland Ram-Air engine,” he said. “Look at the hood. There are scoops on the hood. When you accelerate, the air ducts open up and the car goes faster.”
The Cleveland-type engine is an especially powerful motor. Vito said his was rebuilt.
“And this is so cool,” he said. “I had red material color-coded to the car exterior and sewed into the seats. And the exterior has a graphene ceramic coating.”
This coating gave the paint job the appearance of having a glass skin.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing to the steering wheel. “It’s a rim blow steering wheel. The horn is around the entire inside of the wheel.
Taking hold of the wheel, one could feel that the inside of the wheel was pliant like soft rubber.
Sam Mitchell said he has owned his 1970 Camaro Z-28 since 1981.
“It’s a street race car,” he said. “It’s a 540-Big Block Chevy Engine. With a shot of nitric oxide, I can get 750 horsepower from it.”
He pretty much rebuilt the entire car himself, he said.
“It was a stock engine,” he said. “I took it apart and upgraded it.”
He also has a 1955 Chevy Bel Aire which he is rebuilding.
Carlos Pomares, the Essex County Commissioner and township resident, was seated near a 1934 Ford Model A Victoria. With township attorney Steve Martino, as navigator, Pomare drove the Ford in “The Great Race,” an annual rally of vintage cars. This year the rally went from Owensboro, Ky. to Gardiner, Me. In 2022, Pomares drove his 1972 Corvette in the rally.
“You have to follow instructions to the ‘T’,” he said. You can have no phones, no GPS, no map, only paper instructions that tell you to go from Point A to Point B at a certain speed. There are five checkpoints between stops.”
The rally, which took about a week, this year had 1,444 instructions. A perfect score is when a car arrives at a checkpoint at the scheduled time. Pomares and Martino had two perfect scores. They were not the overall winners, but did pretty well.
“Any car has a chance of winning,” he said. “This is a rally.”
Pomares and Martino are members of a township car club, the Bloomfield Cruisers, which raises money for charities. The rally, which occurred the last week in June, attracted considerable attention along its 10-state route. The Bloomfield pair were even part of local radio programs reporting on the rally.
“It was a great experience to see America, small town USA,” Pomares said. “These are places you normally wouldn’t pick up and go visit.”
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