By Emily Miller

REXBURG—It’s the perfect end-of-summer night for Doug Gracy of Rexburg. As the sun dips on the horizon, casting a pleasant glow on his crimson 1950 Ford Custom, Gracy pulls up a camp chair in front of a line of pretty, shiny classic cars. 

“We spend a lot of time polishing these,” he says. 

Gracy and his friends are car people. Each will be quick to inform you that they are not an exclusive club. They’re just people who love cars and enjoy the camaraderie of their weekly Thursday night gathering in the parking lot between Arby’s and D.L. Evans Bank on Second East in Rexburg. 

It all started 11 years ago with two car-enthusiast friends, Jacob Flamm and KJ Johnson, both of Rexburg.

“We’ve been car buddies ever since we were 14 years old,” Flamm says. “He and I both got an old car about that time, and ever since we’ve just done a lot of car things together.”

Flamm says, in their youth in St. Anthony, he and KJ were given old cars or they bought cheap cars and fixed them up. After they both returned from church missions, they decided it was time to share their excitement with a bigger crowd. The two started meeting up regularly at a local restaurant, calling up friends and telling them they were having a cruise night. 

“It took a little while,” Flamm says. “There were times that we were still the only ones there even after we had gathered a few people to start showing up. But word got out and friends of friends started showing up.”

Flamm has been known to recruit new car friends by watching for unfamiliar classic cars in the area and leaving a note on the windshield. 

Johnson and his wife, Dany, have long shared a love of classic cars. They have known each other since elementary school, but discovered a connection later on, in their mutual enthusiasm for old cars. 

“My grandpa was a hot-rodder, he (KJ) was a hot-rodder,” Dany says. “We kind of just blended.”

Dany has always had a special interest in cars from the 1940s, so this year, Johnson surprised her on her birthday with a shiny green 1941 Plymouth. 

“I had begged the guy who owned it, for several years, to sell it to me,” Johnson says. 

His pleading eventually worked when the previous owner decided to sell and, as Johnson says, “he wanted it to go to a good home.” 

“He does spoil me,” Dany says of her husband. 

Rexburg resident Steve Cook’s love of cars runs deep. Whether it’s his pristine Nash—lovingly named “Nancy’s Nash” for his wife—or his dragster, Cook has an abiding love for cars, and for driving them really, really fast. 

“It takes a parachute to slow it down,” Gracy says of Cook’s beloved dragster. 

Cook raced in his first drag race in 1971, and is still at it, 50 years later. In good conditions, he can get up to 200 mph in his dragster. He’ll be racing at the Division 6 Lucas Oil Drag Race Series this weekend at the Firebird Raceway in Boise.

Harry Halker of St. Anthony has been attending the Thursday night car gathering for about 5 years. He doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t love cars. 

“Back in ‘65, I bought my first 58 Chevy and had it until I went into the service,” Halker says. “And like a dummy, I sold it.”

Years later, Halker says he and a buddy discovered his old Chevy, “in the pumice pit on the road going out to Bone.”

It was upside down and missing pieces, but its off-gold paint job gave its identity away. 

“I just about cried when that happened,” Halker says. “That was my baby from way back.”

It’s a sentiment they all understand.

“These cars, they’re not priceless, but they’re priceless to us,” Gracy says.

The group is enthusiastically welcoming to newcomer collectors and curious observers. They’d love to see a full parking lot each week, and cars of all types and conditions are welcome. 

“We welcome projects, in-the-process, hot rods, rat rods, customs, classics,” Flamm says. “Every type of vehicle is always welcome to show up. Some people show up just because they put a new or different engine in their vehicle. It’s anything car-related that we welcome . . . a lot of us bring our in-progress vehicles or our older vehicles. The one I bring the most has been restored for over 20 years and it’s got some bumps and bruises, but it’s still fun to have an excuse to get it out.”

The weekly Thursday gathering between Arby’s and D.L. Evans Bank begins around 6:30 p.m. and goes until the last car drives away. 

Top photo by David Miller