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Published: April 27, 2026
It was one of those late-April Saturdays when the weather cooperates just long enough to turn a church parking lot into a time machine. The Time Traveler’s Car Club hosted its fourth annual “Another Darn Car Show” at Journey Church on Bank Street, and this year’s edition carried a genuine Hollywood connection: Candy Clark, the Oscar-nominated actress best known as Debbie in George Lucas’s American Graffiti, spent the day among the hoods and hubcaps.
Clark’s presence lifted the event above the usual local show. She signed autographs, posed for photos, and moved through the crowd without a velvet rope between her and the cars. It was not the kind of appearance that starts and ends at a table. She lingered, asked owners about their builds, and seemed genuinely amused by the stories that have been driving car people crazy for decades.
The movie that made her a car-culture icon came out in 1973. American Graffiti, directed by Lucas before Star Wars, followed a group of teenagers drifting through Modesto, California, in 1962 on their last summer night before adulthood. The film treated cars as the central characters: a yellow deuce coupe, a ’55 Chevy, and a long stretch of downtown asphalt that felt like the center of the universe. For a generation, that was the point.
Clark’s Debbie stood out even in a movie crowded with memorable faces. She was the kind of girl who could pick up a nervous kid like Terry the Toad and make the ride feel like an adventure instead of a rescue. Her performance earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Academy Awards, and the role stayed with her long after the credits rolled.
Clark went on to a varied career that included a lead role in The Man Who Fell to Earth alongside David Bowie and a return to her signature role in More American Graffiti. She never became the kind of actor who shuts the door on the work that made her famous. Instead, she has carried the film’s legacy with a kind of friendly ease that fits the culture she helped define.
The Library of Congress added American Graffiti to the National Film Registry in 1995, an honor reserved for movies with enduring cultural importance. For generations of enthusiasts, the film is not just a movie; it is the reason they started wrenching on old cars in the first place. Much of the movie runs on music, too, and that soundtrack was on full display at the show. A small sound system near the church entrance pumped early rock-and-roll, and every few minutes somebody would stop mid-sentence to hum along with a song they had not heard in years.
This year’s Another Darn Car Show had all the ingredients that make an old-car gathering work. The field was full of Thunderbirds, Impalas, Mustangs, GTOs, and vintage pickups. Owners had their hoods open and their tales ready. There were no auction paddles, no corporate sponsor tents, and no stage with a microphone yelling at the crowd. The show felt more like a backyard cookout that happened to have a movie star.
Journey Church made a hospitable backdrop. The grounds were open, the parking was uncomplicated, and volunteers helped things move without turning it into a fuss. It was hard to tell who was a club member and who had simply followed the chrome. That looseness is part of the show’s charm, and it helps explain why the event has lasted four years.
The name “Another Darn Car Show” might sound like a joke, but it is also a statement of purpose. These are not high-stakes collector auctions with six-figure bidding wars. They are gatherings where a retired schoolteacher can show the same Buick he has owned since 1978 and where a teenager can ask, without embarrassment, “What’s a carburetor?” That kind of patience is getting harder to find, and car shows like this are where it still lives.
Candy Clark clearly understood the assignment. She did not stand far away from the action. By late morning she had already signed a stack of photos and was leaning over an engine bay, listening to an owner explain why he swapped in a crate motor but kept the original valve covers. Moments like that are the closest things to time travel that a parking lot can offer.
There is a reason these shows keep multiplying. The skills required to keep a car running are disappearing. When an owner shows a younger visitor how to gap a spark plug or read a carburetor adjustment, that knowledge passes from hand to hand. The cars are the bait, but the real treasure is the know-how.
The event also showed how the old-car hobby is evolving. The crowd was not all silver hair. Younger owners pulled in with modern restomods and clean daily drivers, proving that classic lines are not going away. Clark’s presence gave them a direct link to the cultural moment that made cars feel larger than life.
Organizers did not release official attendance counts, but by late morning the lot was nearly full and late arrivals were directed onto the grass. That kind of turnout, four years in, suggests the show has found a permanent spot on the local calendar. For those who grew up watching American Graffiti on a loop, seeing Clark in the middle of that scene was a small piece of magic.
For the people who waited in line to meet her, Clark was not just a movie star. She was proof that the world of American Graffiti existed somewhere between fiction and memory. Seeing her in a real parking lot, beside real cars, made the movie feel closer to home.
Perhaps the best measure of the day was the way it ended. As late-afternoon light hit the chrome, a small crowd gathered around a red-and-white Chevy. Clark signed one last autograph on a glossy still from American Graffiti. Then she walked to her car, and the engines began to wake up one by one.
Another Darn Car Show may be a deliberately modest name, but this year’s edition was anything but. It had Main Street energy, Hollywood history, and enough polished steel to make a grown adult feel like a kid again. The fourth annual show was not just another car show. It was a reminder of why these cars, and the stories around them, are worth keeping alive.
