Missouri Valley Mopars

Missouri Valley Mopars is no more. For many years now our car club has seen declining attendance at meetings and events. Finally the guy (Dave) that has pretty much been running the show got tired of all the effort he put into it without people showing interest. This spring he let us know that he would be stepping down in September (election month) and they would need to find someone else. After that a ballot was put out to members with several choices but the one that won was to continue with the club in a limited function of two or three meetings/events per year. Dave agreed to continue on in that capacity. A few weeks ago we had our first such meeting, the last meeting of 2007, and only two members showed up in addition to the four club officers in attendance. Our memberships are due in June/July and only two renewed their memberships. Basically these things were the last straw and the indicators that there was really no interest by most of the members to continue the club.

The decision was then made at the meeting to dissolve the club and have a picnic next year to spend the remaining money in the club's account. I am the secretary and write the newsletters. I'll put out a newsletter within the next couple of weeks and then another in the spring when the date for the picnic is decided.

In my opinion there were a couple of main things that contributed to the club's demise. We used to put on a fair sized Mopar car show in Mandan every June. That ended four years ago, I think, when the owners of the speedway in Mandan (wisely, from a liability standpoint) prohibited burnouts during the show. The decision was to not do a car show that year, but search for a different venue for the following year. That never came about. They had a couple of small shows in a parking lot during the Buggies 'n Blues show in Mandan, but never again had the Mopars on the Prairie car show. That show was the one main event every year that drew everyone together. After that ended I could see interest and attendance continue to drop throughout the years.

Another factor, I think, is the skyrocketing prices for Mopars in general. It is pretty hard at this point for the general new enthusiast to purchase a classic Mopar because of the cost. When a beat up 1969 Plymouth GTX sells for $17,000 at an estate auction, it has to have an affect on those without a lot of money. It is tough to get into it if you don't already own a Mopar.

I'm sure there are other factors such as people just being too busy to get involved in one more thing, but I see the end of the annual car show and the prices for Mopars as the two major ones.

For anyone wondering, Mopar generally refers to a Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler muscle car of the classic era (late 50's to mid 70's). It is usually expanded, though, to include other years and non-muscle cars and can include DeSoto, AMC, Jeep, and Eagle. Mopar is a shortening of "Motor Parts," the Chrysler Corporation's parts division. This shortening was done a long time ago and the name eventually came to apply to the cars themselves as well.