Meet...

Phil and Bev Mattoon

We got together during the summer of '74 - those of us who had pre '49 cars with modifications. The early Yakima street rodders came together from word of mouth.

Each time we met, usually at city parks, the numbers grew. By the end of summer, we had a dozen or so street rodders talking 'club'. We were generating a fair amount of interest in doing - putting on a rod run. When Labor Day weekend came, two of us decided to go to our first Rod Run, put on by the Tri-Cities Rods & Roadsters at Columbia Park. Harvey and Jacky Patnode and Bev and myself left for, "...some kind of car show", according to Harvey.

Harv didn't know you stayed the weekend! So, after a trip to the store for socks and a toothbrush, they were ready for the experience.

We had a great time and were all pumped to put on an event in Yakima.

We decided to invite street rodders to Yakima for a picnic at Sportsman's Park. The picnic drew a good turnout of local cars, but the real excitement came when the out-of-town street rods started to roll in!

Rods from Tri-Cities came, and some from the Olympia Street Rod Assn. Again, word of mouth brought them here. We also had a group arrive from Henry's Haulers. This started the tradition friendship between the Henry Haulers and the Vintiques.

The Tri-Cities group offered their support in our efforts to form a club. We got a copy of their constitution and another from the Eastside Street Rod Assn.

Later that fall, we started holding regular meetings at a pizza restaurant on Third Avenue, here in Yakima.

When we got down to writing our own club constitution, we felt that the other samples we had as references were too restrictive. Who needed allot of rules anyway? We wanted room to grow and didn't need to have finished or perfect vehicles. So, no rules on cars, no restrictions on who can join. A street rod club with no limits!

We voted on our name. We combined the words 'vintage' and 'antiques' to form Vintiques.

Bob Hill was enlisted to come up with a club emblem and, after looking at several, we choose the chopped '32 with the word 'Vintiques' across the top.

We then proceeded to lay the plans for the first Yakima Rod Run, the Trolley Run. We held yard sales, bake sales and scrap drives to have money to operate with. Everyone pitched in and helped. We approached the fairgrounds and were able to use the grounds for a very reasonable fee. We were so concerned with doing it right that we organized and over-planned!

The end result was 95 or so rods came and word was, it was simple "The Best!" The word was out - Yakima was in.

Yakima was destined to be 'THE' rod run to attend and the Vintiques, as a club, took off.

The charter members and their spouses laid the foundation that later members have built on. The rest, as they say, is history.

_{Story written by Phil Mattoon...founding father of the Vintiques.}