Even though Old Cars’ headquarters are no longer in Iola, Wis., the publication maintains its ties to the village of approximately 1,200 people and its giant annual Iola Car Show. I often find myself in the rural central-Wisconsin hamlet to meet up with former Old Cars staffers, car show staff and even some previous managers of the publication and its original parent company. One of them is Cliff Mishler, Old Cars founder Chet Krause’s right-hand man who was instrumental in starting the Iola Old Car Show in 1972 and getting Old Cars off the ground when it was founded the previous year. It was on a recent visit to Iola that Cliff shared some exciting news related to the history of Ford Motor Co., Old Cars, the Iola Car Show and the village of Iola.

The first new car to be sold in Waupaca County, the county in which Iola lies, was also one of the first products of the Ford Motor Co. — the 605th Ford product, to be exact. This 1903 Ford Model A runabout was one of about 1,700 built, and years after its original sale, it was eventually traded to the local Ford garage in the city of Waupaca. When Oscar Weisman purchased that Ford garage in 1927, the 1903 Model A was part of the purchase. Weisman kept the Ford until 1972, when the late Krause was finally able to purchase it from him. Within a few years of adding the 1903 Ford Model A to his growing collection, Krause had Milt Colden of Clintonville (also in Waupaca County) restore it.

The restored first-year Ford Motor Co. vehicle was subsequently displayed at a 1978 luncheon in Milwaukee celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Ford Motor Co. — probably the first time it ever left Waupaca County — and was an Iola Old Car Show attraction for the next 30 years. It also made occasional appearances on the pages of Old Cars Weekly (as it was known then) and its parent company’s books, including those in the Krause Publications “Standard Catalog” series. When Krause dispersed his collection at auction in 2006, the Ford Model A was sold to the Antique Car Museum of Iowa in Coralville where it’s been displayed ever since. The Model A’s sale to the Iowa museum marked the first time in more than 100 years that the early Ford was owned outside Waupaca County.

Now, about 17 years after its sale to the Antique Car Museum of Iowa, the Ford Model A is coming home. Under Mishler’s supervision, the Iola Historical Society has purchased the Ford Model A and plans to put it on regular display. The 1903 Ford Model A will again be parked in the county where it was originally purchased 120 years earlier.

Fans of first-year Fords can catch a glimpse of this historic Model A on its home turf at the Iola Historical Society’s 2023 Taste of Norway and Lost Arts Fair on Saturday, Oct. 7. The event is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Iola Historic Village located at 210 Depot Street, two blocks west of North Main Street in downtown Iola.

The Iola Historical Society is still working on funding for the last portion of its purchase of the 1903 Ford Model A. If you’d like to help, write to: 205 Depot St #1, Iola, WI 54945 or call 715-445-4652.

Angelo Van Bogart, Editor
avanbogart@aimmedia.com

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The post An ‘A’ homecoming appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

It all started for me in 1972 with the purchase of a 1954 Chevy Two-Ten four-door sedan for $325 in Staten Island, N.Y. A few weeks later, that was followed by the purchase of a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain Deluxe Eight four-door sedan for $175. Then came a 1956 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday sedan for the princely sum of $25. That car was quickly sold for $125, which seemed like a real “killing” 50 years ago.

An announcement for a car show in New Hope, Pa. — spotted in The Village Voice, of all places — was really my beginning of a long career in the old-car hobby. The next fall, a trip to the AACA Fall National Meet at Hershey, Pa., took that career a bit further. It was Hershey on Friday in the Chevy, and to Camp Hill, Pa., on Sunday for the first convention of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International (www.poci.com).

POCI founder Don Bougher was looking for a volunteer editor for his Smoke Signals publication (then a newsletter, and now a full-blown magazine). Everyone else took a step back, and that’s how I was picked as the new editor. The next summer, my family was transported to Wichita, Kan., for the second POCI Convention. Terry Boyce, editor of Old Cars at that time, was a Wichita native and went there to cover the convention.

That fall, I met up with Terry again at Hershey, where he was selling subscriptions to Old Cars. It seemed like he had a dream job that involved old cars, travel, writing and history.

“How did you get so lucky?” he was asked. “The answer to that question is just keep trying,” he said. “Become a member of the Society of Automotive Historians (www.autohistory.org) and keep trying.” So, that became my agenda between 1973 and 1978: to become an automotive writer.

By 1975, a few of my stories had been sent to Old Cars and actually published. A friend and co-worker named Mike Carbonella took the photos and I took care of the words. Sometimes the stories were donated, and sometimes Terry squeezed out a $12.50 payment for each. It wasn’t about the money, however — it was about having fun.

During the summer of 1978, I planned a road trip to the Iola Old Car Show (now called the Iola Car Show, or IOLA), where Old Cars was published, but it never happened. After looking at the 1,100-mile trip on a map (no Mapquest back then), a visit to car shows in Macungie and York, Pa., seemed to make a lot more sense. No one knew at the time that a household move to the tiny village of Iola was in the cards for me and my family. Working at Old Cars also included working at the Iola Old Car Show, and my first show was in 1979.

The car show had been started in 1972 by Old Cars publisher Chester L. Krause, the founder of Krause Publications, and members of the Iola Lions Club. In 1973, the show became a part of the Iola Lions Club’s annual chicken dinner. By 1979, the show’s theme celebrated Wisconsin-built vehicles, and it was exciting to stand by the gate as many Nash, AMC, Kissel and Excalibur cars showed up, as did a couple of FWD, Oshkosh, Sterling and Oneida trucks. At that time, the staff of Old Cars Weekly (it became a weekly in 1978) did a lot of the car show legwork.

Around 1980, Tex Smith came to work at Old Cars Weekly. Tex had been a boyhood hero of mine after checking out his book “How to Fix Up Old Cars” from the library many times during the 1960s. He had worked for Hot Rod and Motor Trend out of California starting in the late 1950s and through the mid 1960s. He was quickly named publisher of Old Cars Weekly and had some big ideas about growing the publication and the Iola Old Car Show.

At that time, the show was getting big. According to Tex’s book, “Inside Hot Rodding: The Tex Smith Autobiography” (Graffiti Publications, 2015), the show had “something like 1,500 show car spaces, a large number of vendors and around 3,000 swap spaces” and around 60,000 spectators in 1980. It also took up a lot less real estate than it does today, so people on the showgrounds were, literally, bumper to bumper.

Somewhere in this time frame, there was a year when the crowd grew larger than the Iola community of 1,200 people could safely handle. Traffic became backed up for miles, and spectator cars were parking in the ditches alongside the road. Many had to be towed out at the end of the show. Following that experience, someone decided to make some logical changes. A 100-ft. forest ranger tower was obtained and erected on the grounds. It was also decided to end the practice of stopping cars at parking lot entrances to collect money. Instead, the admission fees were raised to include the former parking lot fees and entry was quicker.

Krause Publications Vice-President Clifford Mishler was making many of the decisions to improve the Iola Old Car Show, and it kept growing under his management. Proceeds from the show were used to support local charities and community organizations that worked at the show. At some point, the state tax agents noticed the money that the show was generating and thought it was going to the publishing company. To clarify that this wasn’t the case, the car show was set up as a separate entity called Iola Car Show, Inc., with its own staff and office. That took a lot of the planning responsibilities off the Old Cars Weekly staff.

Even though the Old Cars Weekly staff had less to do with planning IOLA over the years, we had a few suggestions that we passed on to the car show staff. One was to make the Wisconsin Chapter of the Society of Automotive Historians responsible for selecting the annual theme and finding vehicles to fill it. Another was to send a car show staff member to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas each year to line up celebrity guests for IOLA. Today, there are usually a dozen or more TV personalities, celebrities, writers, artists and well-known racers signing autographs at IOLA.

One thing that hasn’t yet been achieved is a visit from comedian and former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, who is a well-known car collector and expert. He was invited to Iola in the late 1990s while still working on the “Tonight Show.” Jay said his schedule was “too tight” then, but he’d try to come sometime in the future. Maybe that day will come soon. We know the 120,000 Iola spectators that currently attend each year would love a visit.

Learn more about the Iola Car Show at https://www.iolaoldcarshow.com/

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The post One man’s road to Iola appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

This year, the non-profit Iola Old Car Show, Inc. organization of Iola, Wis., will be celebrating 50 years of the Iola Car Show. Upon the occasion, the Old Cars staff sat down to talk “car show” with Clifford Mishler, who was credited with the show’s early success by Chet Krause, founder of the Iola Car Show, Krause Publications and Old Cars magazine.

For the 15 years leading up to Iola’s first car show in 1972, the Iola Lions Club hosted an annual chicken roast on the Sunday after the Fourth of July. Following the 1972 chicken roast, Chet Krause discussed with the staff the idea of inviting area collectors to show up with their collector cars at a special Lions Club event scheduled for later that summer, on Sunday, Aug. 27. This second event was billed as an Iola Lions Club Pork Roast and Donation Auction. Krause sent area car collectors invitations to the event, and 14-17 vehicles attended. The next year, in 1973, another invitation went out to collectors to attend the annual early-July Iola Lions Club Chicken Roast with their collector cars, and the Lions Club chicken roast and car show were fatefully tied together.

At this time, Mishler was publisher of Krause Publications’ numismatics division. Given the success of drawing cars to Iola, and Krause’s drive to grow Old Cars, his new hobby publication, Krause charged Mishler with making vintage cars an important annual part of the Lions Club’s annual chicken roast the weekend after the Fourth of July. The show blasted off under Mishler’s direction, and he worked to oversee the Iola Old Car Show until its complete management was handed off to the community through the non-profit Iola Old Car Show, Inc., in 1985. In 1990, Clifford became president of Krause Publications, from which he retired in 2002 after 40 years, and he remains an ex-officio board member of the Iola Old Car Show, Inc.

While Mishler claims not to be an old car collector, he did eventually purchase a 1960 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe very similar to one he bought new and it is occasionally displayed at the Iola Car Show.

Old Cars: What are your past and current roles at the Iola Car Show?

Clifford Mishler: I am simply an advisor, an ex-officio board member. Back in the days I was heavily involved, we didn’t have formal designations of positions. Truly I wasn’t involved in 1972; cars were at the Iola Lions Club pork roast pretty much by Chet’s invitation. Starting in 1973, through, I suppose, 1985 — until the establishment of the non-profit corporation — I was certainly the ‘default director,’ if you will, with the car show. I really handled the back room logistics of making sure it was organized and would come off in an organized manner, but not the registration of vendors or the registration of cars.

OC: How did the idea of the Iola Car Show form?

CM: Krause Publications inaugurated the publication of Old Cars, and that was launched at Hershey in the fall of 1971, and so it was our practice at Krause Publications to go out to all kinds of events to get publicity for the publication and to get subscribers, and we were reasonably successful at that. Chet was always an aggressive person in the publishing business, and in his conversations with the Old Cars staff, which was Dave Brownell and Bob Lichty — they were the old car experts — he came up with the suggestion in the late summer of 1972 that the Iola Lions Club could add old cars to a pork roast, which would be a kind of a donation/auction type of event for the community. Before that, there was no mention of cars or anything like that in connection with an Iola Lions Club event. Chet came up with an idea that he would send a letter to known old car owners in the area and invite them to the Lions Club pork roast. There were 50 or so car collectors invited to the Lions’ event, and if they drove to the event in their collector car, he would provide a meal ticket to them and their spouse. So we ended up with 14-17 cars — accounts vary, but it was in the teens. The general public liked it and the participating car collectors seemed to enjoy the event, so the following year, in 1973, the car element was billed as a component of the annual Iola Lions Club chicken roast, and so that was the foundation of the tradition of the chicken roast and car show. And, of course, the whole purpose was to expose Old Cars and to make more people become aware of the existence of the publication.

OC: When did you begin planning your first car show?

CM: In 1973 I became involved, because of my experience at Krause Publications and in my role at Krause Publications, even though I was not a car collector. I had the capability of being able to draw upon whatever assets that Krause Publications could lend to the event with the old car principals.

OC: How did Chet choose you to run the car show?

CM: I think it was just one of those things that happened. Even though I had only been around Krause Publications for 10 years, by the nature of the publishing business, I was a senior employee. As a senior employee, I felt a commitment to development of the car show, even though I was not a car enthusiast, but I felt this commitment to the event and I made myself available. Chet never told me he wanted me to do this thing or that thing; I was there alongside of him, where the community and Krause Publications staff were concerned. So it was just a natural development or a natural value that I could lend to the event.

OC: How was the show originally staffed?

CM: At the 1972 event, if you will — I refer to it as a precursor event, and I think that is what it really was — there was no advance publicity that there would be cars there — just Chet’s letter to car owners. The 1972 pork roast and auction and donation were simply a Lions Club event. Because Chet had extended this invitation to collectors, Krause Publications showed up with sample copies of Old Cars and did a little sales job for circulation and advertising. So that is the way it ran in 1972. In 1973, it was recognized that perhaps we can build this into not simply a casual event of a few car collectors showing up to eat a meal, we can publicize that there will be old cars on display at the chicken roast, and that would attract a larger audience. At that time, the Lions Club was in charge of the food service, beverage service and parking the vehicles. The Old Cars staff was simply there hosting the collectors and glad-handing them and that kind of thing, and welcoming them to the village and to the event. Then, of course, it just grew going forward. When I look back at the history of the car show, during the period of the 1970s, it seemed that it more or less doubled every year in the number old cars and the number of chickens sold; all of those revenues more or less doubled for the first six, eight, ten years. As that happened, it was recognized that it was getting too big for simply the Lions Club members and the Old Cars staff to handle the event, and that we had to draw in more people from the community to welcome our visitors from out of town. That is the point in which the fire department took over spectator parking and the American Legion became involved and various other organizations became involved and we had hundreds — and, ultimately, thousands — of volunteers involved from beyond the immediate community.

The Old Cars staff was quite involved from a promotional standpoint, where the logistics were handled by the local volunteers. My role became coordination between those groups. I had involvement at Krause Publications and the community. The Old Cars staff didn’t necessarily have the exposure to the community that I had, so I coordinated the two elements.

OC: What was the most difficult part of the getting the show to grow?

CM: I suppose the biggest obstacle over the years was traffic. Initially, people just drove into town on Highway 49 or Highway 161 and found their way to the event grounds. We had to ultimately develop signage and that kind of stuff, and we got the involvement of local, county and state police to help control traffic, and so traffic was probably the biggest inhibitor. It is still the biggest inhibitor to the show, because, ultimately, you can only get so many cars into town when you have two rural state highways that intersect each other going from nowhere to nowhere.

OC: How did the swap meet come about?

CM: Well, my best recollection is that, in 1973, there were a handful — maybe just a couple of people — that showed up with a trailer behind their vehicles with parts that they were interested in selling or trading and, in 1974, I believe, we recognized that element could be developed. So, in 1974 and 1975, the Old Cars advertising staff and publishing staff actively promoted people coming in to vend. I don’t remember if that first year there was a charge for vending, and I don’t know if in 1974 or 1975 that we started charging for it. In 1976, when the show moved out to the new Krause Publications grounds (its current location), we had a truly organized approach to the vendor areas, and it was a sales mission from there.

OC: Were you surprised by the show’s growth?

CM: I certainly don’t think Chet had any premonition of the growth that it would ultimately enjoy. That having been said, I think every year we went into the show with the anticipation that it was going to grow. We would plan for more dash plaques, more food.

In those early years, we didn’t have enough beer on hand to meet the demands of the customers. I remember Bob Dougherty extending the guarantee that if they ran out of beer during the show, he would run down Main Street naked. We ran out of beer, but he didn’t run down Main Street naked. Some of the early attendees might remember that the Bob Dougherty believed that the best way to sell beer was to sell beer in wheelbarrows full of ice. It was rather amateurish compared to what goes on today. It was hometown-type stuff. That is one of the things that the car show has been trying to impress upon attendees. It is a down-home event. We don’t just do it to celebrate old cars and the passion people have for them, but to also showcase the community of Iola — to show it is a good place to live and good place to visit.

OC: What do you credit to the show’s seemingly exponential growth?

CM: Certainly advertising had an element to play in the growth of the show. But it was something more than advertising. It was the openness of the event. Just little things like, a lot of shows have a competition for the best cars and they hand out trophies, and we adopted the attitude that we weren’t going to showcase any particular collector cars. We were just going to invite them to show their vehicles off to the public without getting into the politics of ‘my car is better than your car’ kind of thing. That has somewhat changed over the years in that there is a little bit more of a showcase to the show with the annual featured vehicle display and Blue Ribbon display, but we still try to keep it as an open event where everyone is welcome.

OC: What do you see for the show’s future?

CM: Well, I guess I like to think that the car show will be here 50 years from today. Now, it won’t be the same kind of event that it is today, because human nature changes and times evolve and things like that. I like to think that we will continue to perpetuate this friendly attitude — that it will be an event that will be welcoming to everyone. It may not be as large in number as it is today, because it is hard to get more people into town over the short period of time on these two-lane highways and we’re limited. Where we’re not limited is in our ability to host people and to extract a little bit of their disposable income to benefit the Iola community organizations.

I think it will continue to be a very beneficial exposure element for Iola and the Iola area, and will benefit the area aesthetically and fiscally.

The post Iola Car Show turns 50 this year: 10 questions with Cliff appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.