The 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle that Steve VanOverbeke found back in June of 2019 needed very little as far as repairs and restoration.

“I’m glad we found this one,” he said of the red vehicle, one of three which is featured on this year’s awards plaques for the upcoming Shades of the Past weekend.

VanOverbeke and his wife Pam enjoy taking the car to area shows, which in recent years have included Castlewood and Arlington, South Dakota, and Ghent, Canby, Pipestone, Montevideo and Wood Lake/Granite Falls.

They’ve been Shades of then Past members for three years.

“It’s a very friendly group,” said Pam.

Steve agrees. “They invite us to their events all the time, supper cruises and things like that. I like getting the emails about what is going. They are an active group. We are both working right now — some day, though.”

It’s his second ’64 Chevelle.

“I had one like this when we were dating,” he explained.

They’ve been married for just under 45 years and are the parents of two adult daughters. They met at the old Marshall Drive-in Theater.

He’s had other vintage cars in the past, all Chevys: A ’56 and ‘ 57, ’68 Chevelle, ’68 Camaro and ’66 Impala. How he came to own his current classic car goes back to October 2018, when the two went to a car show in Madison, Minnesota. While they were there, they dropped into New World Salvage, which happened to have a couple of ’65 Chevelles. “I thought the asking price was a little high,” said Steve. He shot them a price, but an agreement could not be reached.

Pam, too, enjoys classic cars and gave her husband a big thumbs-up when she saw the Chevelle. “That’s when I went looking,” he said. For nine months he had no luck on Craigslist, “then I expanded the search area” and he found one in a small town south of Waterloo, Iowa.

The car was in pristine condition when purchased. “The guy I purchased it from restored it in 2009, and we got it in 2019, in time for our 40th wedding anniversary. I tinkered with it, made some small things better,” he said. “But it was in great shape. It got a new (350 cubic inch) motor, a used transmission and brakes in ’09. The body and frame are all original.”

Coincidentally, his first ’64 Chevelle had a “big foot” gas pedal. He was surprised to see that his current Chevelle had the same thing when he bought it. Serendipity.

It’s been a while since he’d had a classic car. “I had plenty of them when I was young, but once we got married and started raising a family, there were other priorities,” he said.

But when he got a glimpse of the ’65 Chevelle at the Madison show, “I got the bug again.”

They used to go to the drag races in Madison, S.D. “I liked going into the pits and looking at the cars,” he said. His love of classic cars never left, it was just put on the back burner for a while.