BENTON — While the delivery may not be as magical as by Santa’s sleigh, a collection of toys will arrive in Little Rock in style when they are brought a Toys for Tots drive by a convoy of classic cars and other collectible vehicles.
The Dixie Car Club of Benton will hold its seventh annual Toys for Tots Caravan at 10 a.m. Saturday, starting at the runway of the old Saline County Airport in south Benton. More than 100 classic vehicles of all types are expected to take part in the event, caravan organizer George Beyers said.
“I expect we will have between 125 and 200 cars if the weather is good,” Beyers said. Some years, there have been as many as 400 vehicles in the caravan.
“It is about the last time in the year that we can get the cars out so a lot of people can see them,” Beyers said. “It is also for a good cause.”
The 125 members of the Dixie Car Club, who host the event, will be joined by classic car clubs from Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village. The caravan will include collectors of Corvettes, Corvairs, Camaros, Mini Coopers, PT Cruisers, Falcons, Porsches and Pontiacs.
Beyers said he will arrive in his 2003 50th Anniversary Edition Corvette, a replica of the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 race for that year. Beyers also owns an award-winning 1928 model A Ford truck, but said he won’t drive the truck in the caravan because it doesn’t have a heater.
An older car that will take part in the caravan is a 1932 Chevrolet Coach owned by Earl Cloud, a retired teacher from Benton. Cloud said the car has been in his family for three generations.
Tifford Cloud paid $375 for the car when he bought it in Benton in 1933.
“It was $400 new, but my grandfather bought it used,” Cloud said. “We have always taken great care of the car. It has never spent a night outside; we have always put it in the garage.”
Under Cloud’s care, the old Chevy has been repainted to its original black, and the interior has been restored, but the engine, chrome and headlights are all original.
Beyers said other classic vehicles will join the caravan on the way to “Toy Hill,” across from the Little Rock Zoo.
The caravan will be escorted by Arkansas State Police, Saline County Sheriff’s Office and Benton Police Department personnel. The cars will travel on Interstate 30 East to Interstate 430, take I-430 to Interstate 630, then take I-630 to the Fair Park Drive exit, south of the zoo.
The cost for drivers to take part in the caravan is a new unwrapped toy worth $10 or more, Beyers said.
“Some of the vehicles will be loaded down with toys,” he said.