Sweet rides like this GTO will line Main and Partition streets for this year’s Annual Sawyer Motors Car Show, July 9. (photo by Robert Ford)
“This will be our biggest car show yet,” promises Bob Siracusano, who’s preparing for the 14th annual Sawyer Motors Car Show on July 9 from 1 to 6 p.m. Siracusano is usually right about his predictions. Sales manager Ray Tucker says more cars were registered by Monday, June 26 than by that date any previous year.
Siracusano is hopeful that more than 500 cars will show up the day of the event. Several thousand people are expected to come to the village to check out the vehicles, talk to the owners, and shop and dine in the restaurants and stores.
If more than 500 cars aren’t enough, motorcycles have been added to the show this year. The bikes will be parked on the patio to the rear of Bella Luna Restaurant. The popular Paul Luke Band will be providing entertainment on the patio as well.
To whet the car lovers’ appetite, there will be a huge kick-off party the night before the show, on July 8 in the Reis Group Insurance parking lot at the corner of Main and Market streets, where Hot Rod will be playing its brand of hot rock and roll. The pre-party runs from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. All money raised from the event will go to the Sawyer Automotive Foundation, which makes numerous donations to local charities.
Siracusano and his team of volunteers who make the show possible call the event “The Best Little Car Show in the Northeast.” According to Siracusano, the show is now about to go international. “I got a call from a guy in Australia saying that he was going to come to this year’s show,” Siracusano said.
The show attracts visitors from the tristate area plus some folks from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania driving in for the day. This will be the first Aussie to visit.
Entertainment is high on the list of activities during the afternoon-long event. This year Lights Out, the Four Seasons tribute band, will return. Also scheduled are Soul City, Road House, and the Michael Dell Band, which Tucker is calling “a must-see band.”
Aout noon, all the cars that will take part in the show line up near the Saugerties High School on Washington Avenue and parade onto Main and Partition streets. , With more than 500 cars expected, that parade may extend onto Market Street.
The event is rain or shine.