Horseless carriage club to visit Alexandria this weekend

That’s because the Fargo Red River Horseless Carriage Club will be touring the city from October 15-17.

Club tours usually involve members bringing their classic cars – in some very classic cases – to a community and then driving them from place to place, participating in different activities.

“We’re going to go around and go to different landmarks or places of interest, someone’s private car collection,” said club rep Joe Hesse from Horace, North Dakota. “We’re going to go do the ship museum, we’ll leave some time for shopping. We do things like that.”

The Alexandria tour will be somewhat affected by the fall season and its unpredictable weather.

“On our fall tour, as the weather can be anything, we tell anyone who wants to come that they can drive any type of car they want,” Hesse said. “They can drive a brand new one, they can drive an old one. He only has to go 55 miles an hour to do this tour.…

“You have some cool cars coming out. There will probably be a few old ones. But they won’t be from before 16,” he said.

Each tour specifies the type of car club members will drive, which sometimes means cars date back to the early days of the auto industry.

“Some of them, we go back to the earliest ones, some of them will be one and two cylinder cars, so your car has to basically be 1915 and up, or pre 16 as it’s called, and you can drive a one-cylinder or two-cylinder car, ”Hesse said.

Another class dates back to 1908, which means that the most recent cars that can be driven are from 1908. Other classes go up to 1928 and 1941.

All of the tours are run on the same basic principles, and some of them draw participants from other countries as far as England and Australia, Hesse said.

Visits sometimes last three days, but are usually closer to four or five days, he said. On the longer tours, the club works with the local chamber of commerce to get the word out, while on the smaller ones, they usually contact local auto clubs to see if they would like to participate in the tour.

“There’s a good chance we’ll do a big tour from Rochester,” Hesse said. “It will basically be 1941 and older cars that fit this.”

Hesse said he had an ulterior motive in choosing Alexandria for this particular tour.

“We were sitting down talking about things, and to be honest I like old ships too, and at least once a year I try to go to the museum there, so I said to them, ‘I don’t ‘haven’t been there this year, we should go back,’ he said.

While in Alexandria one thing they will do will be interacting with the public, which Hesse said he “strongly” encourages.

“I’m one of those who will catch you and we’ll go for a drive,” he said. “The only way to get young people interested in cars is to get them to have one.”

This is how Hesse became interested in vintage cars.

“My neighbor was giving me a hard time because I was doing different stuff, and I was giving him a hard time because he was driving through the countryside in a car that only did 23 miles an hour. He said: “Before you hit it too much, take a week off and come with us. I did, and I’ve been with these guys ever since, ”Hesse said.

The Fargo Red River Horseless Carriage Club is a subsidiary of the Horseless Carriage Club of America. It has around 35 members and has been around since at least the mid-1960s.

For more information visit http://www.fhcca.com/.