Ford Falcon afficionados roll into downtown Jonesborough – Herald & Tribune

Vintage cars

By SERINA MARSHALL
Staff Writer [email protected]

The streets of Jonesborough traveled back in time Thursday as Ford Falcons landed on Main Street and at the Historic Visitors Center.

The Falcon Club of America brought their 1960s and 1970s classic cars to show off to the community and each other at the July14 event.

“I have a 1965 Ford Falcon station wagon,” said club member Bill Poole. “We’ve had it about 61⁄2 years. We went to Florida and got it and brought it back to Virginia. In the 6 1/2 years we’ve owned it, we’ve put about 60,000 miles on it. It’s been to California, it’s been to Maine, the mountains of Colorado, Mississippi; it’s a fun car to travel in.”

Poole and his wife, Karen, take the car to different Falcon shows across the nation each year, and his wife has even made a quilt depicting their journey with their vintage cars.

“I’ve been quilting about 10 years, but I invent what I do as I go along. I do what I think looks good and suits the purpose,” Karen said. “It took me about two months to make this particular quilt. I had to print the pictures onto fabric first, but it took me a long time because I was making it for my husband’s 50th annivesary, so I had to do it when he wasn’t home.”

The Pooles have documented their travels over the past 15 years and have made many memories with various types of Falcons during that time.

“The Falcon came out from 1960 to the 1970s, around 11 years,” Poole said. “Over about a 20-year period, we’ve had seven different Falcons, one of them twice, and we don’t have room for any more.”

According to Falcon owner Lewis Capehart, these events take place yearly and take a tremendous amount of work to make happen.

“The gentleman spearhead- ing this has been working on this event probably five or six months,” Capehart said. “This is a nationwide club and we

have, regions and individual clubs within that region. We are the Tennessee Valley Club.”

This specific vintage car event takes place at various places in the region, Jonesborough being one and Meadowview in Kingsport being another. This year the national meet was happening in the Tri-Cities and next year it will be in Kansas City.

“We had 200 cars registered and 45 are down here today and then 150 are back at Meadowview,” Roger McCarter said. “We had three or four groups of 15 cars coming into the visitor center parking lot in shifts.”

Capehart led the first shift, McCarter the second and Da- vid Barbour led the third.

“Almost everyone has a Falcon story,” Capehart said. “I had one I drove to school. My grand-mother had one. There was a lot of Falcons built in the 60s. I now own a 1962 hard top.”

Barbour, a Birmingham, Alabama resident, owns a 1963 Falcon convertible, which was his wife’s car in high school.

“Her dad bought it new in 1963 and she’s had it ever since,” he said. “We got it on the road about seven years ago, instead of watching it sit in the basement and listening to the tires go flat. We did a few upgrades, got it road worthy and hit the road.”

The 1963 car has been driven in 24 states.

“Last summer the nationals were in Dallas. We left Dallas and made a loop through Wyoming and Montana and the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa,” Barbour said. “We had 16 states in 21 days; 4,400 miles. It’s been to a national in Wisconsin, Kansas, Colorado and Texas.”