TOWER- A rainy Saturday morning was not an auspicious start for what the new owners of the Tower Café are hoping to become a regular feature in downtown Tower. But plans for future car show events are already in the works.
Three vehicles were parked in the bank parking lot adjacent to the café, but the three hit most of the high points for restoration enthusiasts: a shiny classic 1950s road car, a working 1960s vintage truck, and a teenager who turned a 20-year old junker into a working vehicle.
Café owner Bob McDonough is a car enthusiast himself, and he is confident that with warmer weather, the next car show slated for Saturday, May 18 (subject to change, please check the cafe's Facebook page), will line classic cars up and down the block. This will include his family’s own treasured collection: a 1972 Corvette, a 1979 El Camino, and a 1929 Ford Model A that has been modified to drive “more like a dragster.”
Bob comes from a family of car buffs. His brother is the president of a car club in Lakeland, Minn., and that club plans to bring a nice selection of classic cars up for the May 18 date.
The café will be roasting corn outdoors, state fair style, with sales to benefit the Tower Area Food Shelf.
The café is hoping to host many more car show events over the summer.
Jaymes Scholz, of Ely, showed off his 2004 Jeep Liberty 4x4, a vehicle older than he was.
“It’s just a beater that I bought this winter,” he said. The car has over 230,000 miles and he bought it from a family friend for $200, and has since spent about $500 on needed parts, including v-joints, ball-joints, new exhaust, and an LED light bar. This is a practical restoration, giving him a car to commute to Vermilion Country School in Tower, where he is a sophomore, and to work on a construction crew. Getting rid of the rust and restoring the paint job wasn’t the goal for this vehicle— he was just looking for a reliable ride. Jaymes has worked with his father on other restoration projects, including a 1979 Ford highboy truck, and a 2010 Ford Raptor. He and his father also restore vintage snowmobiles.
The other two vehicles on display were more familiar car show entries.
Rob Mattson bought a 1967 Chevrolet Hereford, a 2WD working farm truck back in 2018, and has since turned it into dump truck. He installed a 4WD drivetrain, and then added a working dump, that he had bought used.
“They never made a 4WD model of the C30 dually,” he said. “It was kind of fun to turn it into a 4WD.”
Mattson, a chiropractor in Ely, said his two big hobbies are cars and guitars (he is a popular local musician).
This project had a practical purpose. He uses the truck to haul brush and bring garbage to the dump.
“I’ve always monkeyed with cars,” said Mattson. “My first car was an Impala which I bought when I was in high school,” Mattson said. “They are cool and fun to drive.”
Mattson was happy to see a teenager excited about car restorations.
“Young guys like Jaymes will keep it going,” he said.
The “classiest” of the cars on display was a 1957 Chevrolet 210 Station Wagon, which had been totally restored by Mike Forsman, also of Ely.
“I bought it from my insurance agent back in 1975 for $100,” he said. He planned to turn it into a family car, but the vehicle ended up sitting in his backyard for a little over 40 years, before he finally had the time to tackle the project once he had retired.
“I pushed it into the garage in 2017,” he said. “I took it all apart. It was a fun project.”
Forsman installed safety features, like front and rear seatbelts, and has driven the wagon as far as Fargo, for a car show in March, which involved driving through some nasty winter weather.
“The car has never been on a trailer,” he said.
The car attracted some attention from a young car enthusiast, Cy Bishop, who had convinced his grandmother to give him a ride to Tower to see the car show. Cy was pretty sure the wagon would have fit right into a Ghostbusters movie.
Many others stopped by to see the vehicles and visit with their owners. Randy Thompson didn’t bring a car to show on Saturday, but was clearly a classic car enthusiast, talking “shop” with the others in the parking lot, before volunteering to help with organizing future car shows.
While turnout may have been light for this event, the enthusiasm was clearly running high.