Central Connecticut State University’s Central Car Club held its annual spring charity car show at the New Britain Stadium on Sunday, April 14.

Tuckerman Wink, president of the Central Car Club, said that this year’s show was their biggest by far. It was sold out within an hour, and an estimated 800 show cars and over 1,000 people were in attendance. Those registered could show off their cars. The venue featured food trucks, stunt performances, and an awards ceremony.

Wink said they moved the show to the stadium because they sold out the spaces available in the Student Center lot and parking garage at CCSU. Where they usually hold the shows.

“We decided to move it to a local venue, which is the New Britain Bees stadium, because there are multiple spots for show parking and even more for vendors or for spectators,” Wink said.

Wink also said multiple factors separated it from past shows, such as a different traffic layout, a different vendor layout for improved foot traffic and increased advertising for the show because of more sponsorship.

Social media was a big factor in advertising for the car show.

“We have a large following on both our Central Car Club Facebook and Instagram … over the years, we’ve been passing down those accounts to the president, and we have a media guy … we just continue to grow that,” Wink said. 

“One thing that we did this year is we really got in touch with our vendors, who also have large followings on social media, and we had them repost our show, our flyer information. We even had one vendor who bought extra spots, and they did a giveaway. They gave away three spots and if they reposted our show flyer then they could get entered to win the three VIP spots.”

Chris Hampton, owner of Obsolete Performance in Somers, CT, displayed his 1995 Toyota Crown, which he imported from Japan three years ago, making it the 12th car he has imported.

“We do import vehicles and parts from Japan, parts through containers (such as) bumpers… engines, wheels, cars we generally do roll-ons roll-offs … anything that you need or want you can get through us,” Hampton said.

Hampton talked about the 2200-mile road trip he had taken with his car to different theme parks around the northeast and south and how he hopes to eventually do another one across the country.

“I’m going to hit the show circuit in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and around here,” Hampton said. I do plan on doing another large trip with this. I would really want to figure out a way to go from here to California.”

Wink said that in addition to the spring and fall car shows, the club was also able to attend the New York Auto Show this year and other car shows hosted by Connecticut universities and other vendors.