Cardi's Car Cruises offer peek of past

Classic Car Cruises has become a great summer past time, and with the great weather Rhode Island has been seeing lately, nothing beats a nice night checking out some hot wheels.

NiRoPe, Nick, Ron and Pete Cardi, who host Car Cruises at Cardi's Furniture each week, along with car collector Vinnie Calenda, joined The Rhode Show to talk more about it.

Nick Cardi: We host three Classic Car Cruises a week; Mondays in West Warwick, Wednesdays at our Braintree location, and Thursday nights in South Attleboro. We have big parking lots and some nights we get close to 90 classic cars! We have a DJ playing some oldies and it’s a lot of fun for the whole family, and best of all: it’s free!

The Rhode Show: Ron, you guys get some pretty amazing looking cars!

Ron Cardi: Absolutely, we’ve had cars from every decade in the 1900’s, and when you see how much time and effort the car owners put into thier own vehicles, you can’t help but smile and look at all the details of the cars! To see these pieces of history preserved and operational...People come with thier classic cars, they bring an outdoor chair, answer any question you may have, and if they don’t know the answer, they’ll make up something believable! The classic car owner knows a great deal about a quality built machine, and it’s fun to see how cars have evolved over the past century.

The Rhode Show: Vinnie, you've got quite the collection.

Vinnie Calenda: I've got a 1930 Pontiac Oakland, a 1950 Pontiac Chief and 1966 Pontiac GTO. It takes a lot of maintenance and care and you just have to keep up with them.

The Rhode Show: Pete, you've been hosting Car Cruises for years!

Pete Cardi: That’s right, it's a fun hobby, and lets face it, most of the car owners are men, and if he’s going to spend time and money to keep the car looking pristine, you know, the wife is going to get what she wants too, so we just happen to have a large showroom with beautiful furniture in it on-site! We appreciate the hobby of classic car collecting and cruising, we’re happy to host the cruises, these people are literally preserving history in thier own garage, it’s great they share thier passion with us at our stores!

Online: http://www.cardis.com/main/cruises.php