| More than 40 Chevrolets 1926-1959 will be touring Ballinger on Wednesday, April 3rd as part of the 22nd Annual Southern Spring Tour SST) of the Vintage Chevrolet Club of America (VCCA). The tour will be based in San Angelo the week of April 1 – 5. Tour participants will enjoy lunch at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center provided by the Carnegie Library Auxiliary after their visit to the Indian Pictographs in Paint Rock and Saint Boniface Parish Church in Olfen. Their Ballinger visit includes a driving tour of the city and visiting local shops. The Southern Spring Tour is held annually for four and six-cylinder Chevrolet’s (1926-1959) and (1906 – 1954); it is a VCCA members only event that provides owner-drivers of vintage Chevrolets with a chance to come together and tour new locales in their restored auto’s. Each year, a different city in the southern United States is selected as the location for the next SST. VCCA members, Anne Bramble of San Angelo, and her brother, Kevin Olmstead of Stillwater, Oklahoma, are hosting the April 1 – 5, event. The Historic Pearl on the Concho hotel will serve as tour head-quarters. Kevin, a charter member and past Director of the Heart of Route 66 (Oklahoma) Region of the VCCA has planned five previous tours including the very first Southern Spring Tour. He proposed bringing the 2019 Southern Spring Tour to the Concho Valley due to its many and varied tourist sites and the welcoming attitude of the people and businesses in the area. Anne said, “Planning a Southern Spring Tour is great fun but was pretty challenging since four-cylinder vehicles don’t go as fast, can’t maneuver as well, and the higher the hill the slower they go in comparison to new vehicles. The old cars travel at a top speed of approximately 35 mph (downhill).” Anne credits Marshall & Diane Huling as an invaluable resource in planning the tour of the San Angelo area. The Huling’s hosted the 2012 ”T-Party Tour” which drew 84 Model T’s to San Angelo. Marshall not only shared the well laid out T-Party Tour Book, that Diane and her sister spent countless hours assembling, but pointed out area roads that would be most challenging for vintage automobiles. |
