Published: June 22, 2008 07:48 am      

Mustang owners show off the shiny at Saturday event in Jeffersonville

For Bruce and Jeanie Kolb, car shows are a 43-year tradition.

“We don’t play golf, we don’t go bowling. This is what we do,” Bruce Kolb said, sitting near the bumper of a shined-up, antique Mustang.

“We have cats and cars.”

Theirs was among about 120 others parked at Quartermaster Station in Jeffersonville on Saturday for the Falls City Mustang Club’s annual Mustang Weekend.

For Jeanie Kolb restoring and beautifying the cars are a release from her job as a kindergarten teacher.

There are a lot of things in this world that a person can’t control, but the way a car looks isn’t one of them, she said.

Across the lot, sat Jim and Kathleen Lyvers, showing off a ‘Stang they spent years restoring from a wreck. The pair, from Ohio, Ill. (a town south of Rockford, Ill.,) does plenty of similar shows near their hometown, but usually only get out to regional shows like this one about once a year.

“It’s a beautiful show,” he said.

If you’ve heard of it before it’s because it has been taking place annually for about 13 years.

Charles Smith, president of the Falls City Mustang Club, bills it as a weekend-long event. Things got started with an approximately 60-car cruise through the outskirts, which landed them at Joe Huber Family Farm and Restaurant on Friday. Some car-owners even dashed out to Salem Speedway for a few quick laps around the track, Smith said.

The gravity really does pull the cars toward the walls, said Lyvers. Fortunately no doors were dinged during that pony run.

Smith said the weekend typically brings Mustang and Ford owners from across the country. There were participants from as far away as Washington, New York, Wisconsin and Michigan, he said.

“There’s probably more out-of-towners here than local people.”

He estimated about 400 people were there by late Saturday morning, many of whom were spectators.

The gathering takes place only once a year. However, the Mustang club does cruises about once a month, he said.