19th Annual Orange Plaza Car Show

November 27, 2023 by Divya

Text and Photos by Roger Rohrdanz

19th Annual Orange Plaza Car Show

The city of Orange is celebrating its 125 anniversary in 2013, and one of the significant features of this quaint city is the Plaza. It turns out that the Plaza is also a terrific place to hold a car show. It’s an old-fashioned area featuring a major traffic circle surrounding a park with benches, trees and a large fountain. Picturesque, old-style buildings with plenty of stores to browse and restaurants serving good food surround the Plaza.

The Orange Plaza Car Show was blessed with chamber of commerce weather with lots of blue skies and temperatures in the high 70s. More than 400 cars participated in the 19th annual event. This show not only attracts thousands of spectators but an interesting variety of cars, including hot rods, classics, traditional rods and customs.

The car show is arranged like a wheel hub with spokes, so the cars circled the Plaza and continued down four individual streets. Many local and performance vendors occupied the center hub, while spectators strolled the streets admiring the vehicles. A DJ spinnin’ oldies tunes was the perfect cap to a pleasant outing. It was definitely a day of speed and beauty for all to enjoy!

Swoopster is a ’41 Willys roadster belonging to Charlie Tachdjian from La Verne, CA.

How about Brent Collier’s rare Hollywood Graham? It added to the variety of cars at this event.

Three old style Chevrolet Fleetlines showed off.

Seth Sundquist of Orange brought out his work in progress, a Chevy-powered ’31 Ford pickup.

This nicely done, blown big-block-powered ’70 Chevy SS Chevelle was driven by Mark Demers from Long Beach, CA.

Steve Popley of Mission Viejo, CA, brought his very green ’66 Dodge Charger.

This very sleek Ford GT 40 belongs to Mike Biss of Orange.

This bright red ’65 Chevy Malibu belongs to Toby Arballo of Perris, CA.

A crowd gathered as the Surgeon Brothers front-engine dragster was about to be fired up.