Young to bring love of vintage vehicles to Experience Louisiana Festival

Now that his children are grown and moved out, John R. Young has filled his empty nest with classic cars.
“I have always been interested in, loved, old antique cars,” Young said. “I always wanted to get one, and a good friend of mine, Ted Bertrand from Carencro, brought me a Hemmings magazine. He said ‘Here, it’s time for you to get something,’ and I bought a 1938 Buick in 2001.”
“Before that, we were raising kids and paying for the dentist, college and weddings,” he added.
Young will display his Buick and several other cars from his extensive collection at the Experience Louisiana Festival Oct. 17-18 at the LSU-Eunice campus.
Even though Young grew up with Chevrolets and considers himself a Chevrolet guy at heart, he recalled his infatuation with that first Buick.
“That Buick just grabbed me — the hood, the fenders, the wheels,” Young said. “I could just sit there and gaze at it.”
“If there’s one thing I have learned from collecting cars, it’s to buy it already restored, if you can, unless restoring is your thing.”
After purchasing the 1938 Buick, Young joined the 1937-1938 Buick Club, and he began to meet people from all over the country who were also members of the club. The car collector soon added a restored 1955 two-door Buick Super and a 1937 Chevy pickup truck to his set of classic vehicles. Young’s most recent purchase was a Buick Reatta, and the cars were only made from 1988 to 1991.
“There’s a club for the Reatta’s, too,” he said. “I own a couple of them, and we will have a coupe and convertible on display at the festival.”
In addition to cars from his own collection, many members of the Evangeline Chapter of Antique Automobile Club of America, which Young is also a member of, will have their classic cars on display at the festival.
“Anyone who is interested in displaying their vehicle can give me a call,” Young said. “There is no registration, and we have three classes for the show — pre-World War II, post-war and modifiers and hotrods.”
“We are excited about the festival. It’s a good venue and a good place to display and show our cars for both the young and old to enjoy and reminisce.’