Two Respectable Car Shows This Week with Scrappy Roots

It’s been a while since the Coachmen of Norwalk cruised the streets in sterling new muscle cars, with big boots, tight jeans, and slicked-back hair, looking for girls to pick up and drive back to the beach for a –possibly rowdy—night of partying.

In fact, it’s been 53 years since a group of Norwalk High Schoolers became the Coachmen, but their love for cars hasn’t waned. Recently, the Coachmen teamed up with the Wilton Kiwanis Foundation and will be hosting two separate events for car enthusiasts to shoot the breeze and ogle the competition.

“Kicking tires and swapping lines is what we call it,” said Kevin Craw, a Kiwanis Club member.

“You know, ‘I got more money in my wheels than you do’,” explained Craw, saying that car enthusiasts loved to get into some good-natured ribbing and car-oriented trash talk. “It’s real low key. ... Good fun on a summer evening, basically.”

“We would love to have people with interesting cars in the Wilton area to come down,” said Craw. He said that the show, which takes place in the Pearsall Building’s parking lot at 6 p.m., draws in at least 100 cars each year and has been going for 11 years.

The original show was to have been on Friday, July 8, but has been delayed to Friday, July 15 due to bad weather.

The shows also have a somber note to them, as they are, in part, honoring the tragic death of Wiltonian Thomas “Geeb” Fleming, who was killed by a drunk driver while driving his motorcycle on July 5, 2009 in Ridgefield.

The events are free to enter, both for visitors and for those with cars to show. In Wilton, the Kiwanis club will be selling hot dogs and cold drinks: Proceeds will go to a scholarship fund for Fleming’s daughter, who is now in college.

This Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., , the Coachmen in Norwalk will host their annual “A Cruise at the Beach,” which normally draws in 200-300 cars, according to Nick Allegretta, an original Coachman and life-long Norwalk resident.

1958, then and now

“Our club goes back to 1958,” said Allegretta. “We were 16, 17, 18 years old…we used to race [on the streets], but then we went to the tracks rather than getting in trouble on the streets like we were,” he said.

Allegretta said that the Coachmen were a bunch of young guys with cars in Norwalk who sometimes got in trouble, but calmed down as they got older.

“In 1963 we hibernated; some of us went to college, went to the service, got married. Times change. In 1986 we decided to get active again.”

Four current members of the Coachmen are originals: Frank Colcone, John Guaglione, Fred Bondi, and Allegretta.

The Coachmen ended up being “a group of wise-ass kids [who] became really decent” people, said Allegretta: Colcone is now a major building contractor, Guaglione is a retired captain of the fire department, and Bondi is a councilman who even ran for mayor, said Allegretta. Allegretta owns in Wilton.

Another member, whom Allegretta didn’t name, went from being a “scrapper” to an art professor at Yale University, and now resides in Italy.

“You never know where you’re going to,” he said.

“We park our cars, we enjoy em, and we bull-[expletive]. We became our parents,” he said, half-jokingly.

“A Cruise at the Beach” is sponsored by the Norwalk Parks and Rec and is Coordinated with the Coachmen and the Kiwanis Club. Participants are encouraged to bring canned food and non-perishables, which will be donated to the St. Vincent and Paul Church in Norwalk, which is then distributed via a food bank. Allegretta said they have been collecting and donating food this way for 16 years.

But since Fleming’s death, these shows double as an honor to the former Coachmen.

“Tom was a great guy, and I really miss him,” said Allegretta. “It’s a memorial cruise night to him.” 

The photos in this article are used with permission from Allegretta and taken from their website, where there are more than enough classic car pictures to get your motor oil boiling.

Trophies for the best cars will be awarded, and are sponsored by the following buisnesses:  Lucci Electric, Deluxe Paving, Fairfield County Bank, ServCo Oil, Cannondale Generators, Wilton Auto and Tire, Horizon Glass, Nappa Auto Parts Plus, and Fashion Floors. The overall event is sponsored by Reynolds and Rowella. 

Those from out of townwill be charged $5.00 to show their vehicles at the Norwalk show.

Editor's note: This article originally was published by Wilton Patch.