At the Intersection of Cars and Community: Organizing the Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show

Originally published in the May 2025 issue of Arlington Today

By Garret Martin, Vice President of Downtown Arlington Management Corporation

I'm the kind of person who dreams of cities built for people, not parking lots. I champion walkability, bike lanes, and corner cafés over seas of asphalt and traffic jams.

But also? I think a '68 Corvette Stingray is a work of absolute art. And I will absolutely cross the street to get a closer look at a vintage VW bus.

Welcome to the Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show, where my two worlds collide.

Organizing this event for four years now, I've seen the way the community has come together to gaze in awe at these beautiful cars and reminisce of a past that my generation has only seen in movies.

As a teenager, I watched Dazed and Confused on repeat, dreaming of a time when friends cruised around in Chevy pickups, met up to hang out, then rolled on to wherever the crowd was gathering next.

The Car Show isn’t quite American Graffiti, but there was a definite energy of borrowed nostalgia, polished chrome, and stories swapped over open hoods and folding chairs.

While this is a celebration of the cars, it’s more so a celebration of Arlington's history. As a UTA student, you couldn’t graduate without hearing stories of cruisin' Cooper, the drive that Arlington youth made up and down Cooper in their convertibles and Trans Ams. It was the height of culture, as some would have it.

One of my fondest memories at the Car Show was a conversation with Bob Moore of Moore Rental. Bob and his team had finished setting up the tents that year, and I caught him misty eyed in front of a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air.

I asked him if he liked the car. He proudly told me that it was the very same model and year that he had had in high school. I can imagine Bob, rocking a pompadour, pulling up to the drive-in to meet up with all the other cool kids of Arlington.

Those memories tie us together as a community. Events like these allow the city to celebrate itself, to understand ourselves in context, and to be prideful of where we’ve come from.

The setting for the Classic Car Show couldn’t be better. Leaders of Arlington live in the shadow of the great Tom Vandergriff, whose family name is still on every other license plate in Arlington. Vandergriff played a pivotal role in bringing the General Motors assembly plant to Arlington, a move that transformed the city’s economy and identity. Vandergriff Enterprises first established their sales room in the 1930s at the site of what we now call Vandergriff Town Center, the home of the Car Show.

This location is my favorite part of the Show. With classic cars lining the streets beneath the glow of the Arlington Music Hall marquee, it recalls the magic of cruising down the old Bankhead Highway—once the original east-west connector across the United States, with Arlington at its heart. Where cars were once sold to families building lives in a small-town city, the Show now brings thousands of visitors to celebrate those same vehicles, but in a very different century—and a vastly transformed Arlington.

Events like this show us what downtowns are really about: people gathering, sharing stories, and occasionally revving an engine loud enough to set off car alarms from the 21st century. We hope to see you out there this year, on June 7^th from 9 AM to 3 PM.

Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show

The Downtown Arlington Classic Car Show is an annual community event that brings hundreds of car lovers together to celebrate vintage and custom vehicles in the heart of Downtown Arlington, Texas. Featuring classic cars, live music, local food and family-friendly fun, the free show highlights the vibrant culture of downtown and classic cars while supporting local programs and initiatives.