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First Posted: 5/31/2013 WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A walk around Public Square Friday night could have taken you back in time &#8212; from the 1990s to the &#8217;50s and even further.
The Northeastern Pennsylvania Regional Antique Automobile Club of America held its &#8220;Car Cruise&#8221; Friday night and more than 300 vehicles were on display to jog memories, trigger sentiments and bring smiles to the hundreds of people who came out to hear the &#8220;vrooom&#8221; and smell the exhaust of yesteryear.
Tom Martin, 53, of Wilkes-Barre, co-chaired the event. &#8220;You can come here and see cars that you may never see again,&#8221; he said.
The Car Cruise is held the last Friday of every month on the Square. This is the club&#8217;s 12th year of operation. Martin said all sorts of vehicles are accepted. &#8220;If it has wheels, it&#8217;s welcome,&#8221; he said.
The top three cars are given awards. The winners are chosen by a panel of eight judges selected by spectators. The criteria is simple &#8212; pick the car/truck/vehicle you like. A Special Interest Award also will be given to a vehicle not fitting in the regular categories. Past winners include a DeLorean, a Rolls Royce and a monster truck, he said.
Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton was scheduled to pick the Mayor&#8217;s Choice winner and Walter Kreig, president of the club, was slated to present an award.
The club will hold its biggest event of the year Sunday at Luzerne County Community College, Martin said. Admission costs $2.
A lot of pride
Trucksville resident Jim Roberts said the vehicle owners take great pride in preserving cars that represent their childhoods or their affections for a particular car company or style and design.
Roberts, 68, brought his 1951 red Ford convertible. He had the original sales sticker attached to the window. The car sold for $2,310 at the Z.D. Howard Co. in Drumright, Okla., on June 8, 1951.
&#8220;I went to a car show and the desire to own an old car just bit me and bit me good,&#8221; Roberts said. He logged more than 1,000 hours restoring the car and he was sure to have it painted an authentic 1951 Ford color.
Howard Stritzinger, 62 of Nanticoke, sat next to his 1969 tan Cadillac DeVille that he&#8217;s owned for 25 years and restored himself. &#8220;My father owned a junk yard,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been into cars all of my life.&#8221;
Next to his car was a 1964 Plymouth Fury owned by Bob Best, 60, of Pittston. The red Ford racing car with a red and white interior featured a push-button transmission. &#8220;My brother and I owned a slew of these when we were younger,&#8221; the retired automotive technician said. &#8220;We were into street racing.&#8221;
One of the jewels of the display was a 1965 Corvette Sting Ray. Bob Luongo, 46, of Dallas, has owned the car for 12 years and was eager to show it off to passersby &#8212; especially the red interior and teak wood steering wheel.
&#8220;These cars take people back in time,&#8221; Luongo said. &#8220;They go back to the days when the world was on more of an even keel.&#8221;
Car owners like to talk about how &#8220;original&#8221; their cars are. Larry Mazurek said his car &#8212; a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396, is a &#8220;survivor.&#8221; &#8220;It has original everything,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Even the floor mats are original.&#8221;
Cars for everyone&#8217;s taste
Everywhere on Public Square were cars: Plymouth Road Runners, Chevy Novas, Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Pontiacs, Buicks, station wagons, foreign cars, heavily modified cars and newer vehicles customized and decked out.
John Stefanoski of Wilkes-Barre Township was walking through the display with his family. &#8220;We check this out every year,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I like them all &#8212; I haven&#8217;t seen one I don&#8217;t like.&#8221;
Joe Czopek and his son, Alex, 20, brought a 1975 Chevrolet Nova to the event. Alex said he prefers the older cars over today&#8217;s vehicles. &#8220;The older cars are distinctive,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The new stuff all looks the same. There&#8217;s nothing like the sound of a big V-8 engine.&#8221;
John, 73, and Barbara Young, 69, drove their 1955 Cadillac DeVille onto the Square. The big black-and-white car caught a lot of people&#8217;s attention. &#8220;It was owned by a Mennonite family,&#8221; Barbara said.
&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t have a radio.&#8221;
Emil Feist had his white 1963 Chevrolet Impala SS; he owned a similar car in 1964. &#8220;These cars take us back to our youth,&#8221; he said.
Bob Peterson, 63 of Mountain Top, had his Harbor blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air with its license plate: 4MY FUN2. He said nobody believes the car&#8217;s color is original so he carries a brochure in the trunk to prove it. &#8220;Everybody has a turquoise &#8216;57 Chevy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I wanted something different.&#8221;
A 1953 Chevrolet with a &#8220;For Sale&#8221; sign was getting a lot of attention. Owned by Tony Casagrande, 73, of Plains Township, the Woodlawn green car with light green top sparkled.
&#8220;It&#8217;s good to remember the good-old days,&#8221; Casagrande said. 
&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to bring those days back, but these cars represent those good times.&#8221;

Old cars come out for new season