Hot Rods and Car Talk: Classic Car Show Brings Thousands to Norcross

Ever notice that the best storytelling happens in two places: around a water cooler and around the hood of a car. 

An estimated 8,000 strolled the streets of Historic Norcross yesterday for the Classic Car Show, an annual benefit that features hundreds of cars, from antique trucks to slick new Vipers (don't get the Corvette owners started) and everything in between.

The variety of gleaming cars had kids--some of whom were judges for the Kids Choice trophy--brimming with excitement but it was the stories told while milling around the vehicles that really took the prize. 

Gary Moon stood proudly beside a very unique car, the oldest one Patch could find at the show: a 1922 Moon, a rare St. Louis auto manufacturer that made its first car in 1905 and its last in 1930. Gary said only a few hundred Moon cars exist in the country, and his is the only one in Georgia. 

Gary takes special pride in this car, which he’s been working on since December of 2008, because he believes he is a distant relative of the same Moon family that makes them.

“I haven’t been able to prove it, but they haven’t been able to prove I’m not,” he laughed. He was able to trace the car family to two locations in the United States after they immigrated, one of them in the Carolinas where his family is originally from. 

He said he'll just have to live with a "strong suspicion" for now. A publication recently did a story about the family and asked if they could use his car for it. It was shot in front of the original Moon family home, fittingly. 

Nearby, Yamil Fonseca shined the wheels of his yellow ’68 Nova. He estimates that he has put 960 hours of tender work in it. “It is always cheaper to buy it than to build it,” he admits. When you multiply 960 by the going rate for working on these cars, it is a shocking investment, he said, but he can't stop. He loves it. 

Fonseca was working on two Novas when his wife got pregnant with their first child. Sadly, the baby ended up passing away. Fonseca said he gave up on the whole car thing, feeling uninspired. Just then, this yellow Nova was chosen to on the cover of a car magazine and given a five-page spread—a complete surprise for him.

He took it as a sign to continue his passion and now dedicates his work to his child. “Kind of funny the way things work,” he said.

The basis of this Classic Car Show is another story of dedication. Dodger De Leon, the organizer of the event, started the show with his car buddies from the Depot after losing his daughter in a car accident.

The original show was to help cover all of her hospital bills, said De Leon, but the group decided to carry on the tradition year after year. Because his daughter was in nursing school, they wanted to honor her legacy by offering medical scholarships for students in need.

Five students were sponsored by this year's car show. 

And thousands more stories were made.