Hollin Hillers Bring Serious Style to Old Town Vintage Car Fest
Hollin Hills glamour girl Roxy Hoveyda was the model for this year’s Old Town Festival of Speed & Style poster (designed by Tom Kuester); while stylish hubs Matt Kies shone as the Master of Ceremonies
If, like us, you are no longer speedy, nor even the slightest bit stylish, you might have thought you didn’t really belong at the Old Town Festival of Speed & Style on Sunday. But it turned out that you didn’t need to be either of those things to have a blast; all you had to do was stroll through historic Alexandria while admiring some of the most beautiful — and downright sexy — vintage automobiles on the planet.
Object of desire: a 1955 Thunderbird (photos by Stephen Brookes)
And seriously, these things were amazing. Stretching for block after block in the heart of Old Town were more than a hundred “rare and exotic supercars”, from a 1955 Thunderbird with original engine and 83,000 miles (how is that even possible?) to a cherry-red 1955 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer, to more Ferraris than you could shake a dipstick at. There were fins galore, white wall tires everywhere you looked, rich, gleaming paint jobs (particularly red; a lot of red) and more chrome than you knew existed on earth.
Tom Kuester, Hollin Hills artist, architect and car guy, at the Festival on Sunday
And even if you know less than nothing about cars [raises hand, looks around awkwardly], you would have to be blind not to get a little weak-kneed at the swooping lines, the free-flowing elegance, the what-the-hell cool of these machines. They’re deadly beautiful, most of them, yet actually useful, too — like modern sculptures you can drive around. (Try taking your Henry Moore to the Safeway sometime, and see where it gets you.)
The other great thing is, the event is a feel-good fundraiser that raises tens of thousands of dollars every year for local, non-profit charities. And it turns out that Hollin Hillers have been at the heart of the Speed & Style Festival for years.
Matt Kies kept the “Style Celebration” motoring along
That might sound a little surprising — Hollin Hills is more about speed bumps than speedways, after all, and our streets, with their curves and slopes and little cul-de-sacs, were deliberately designed to slow traffic to almost a walking pace.
But we do love our midcentury design, and have quite a few serious car collectors — including architect Tom Kuester, who designed the posters and other artwork for the Festival (and drives a yellow 1972 De Tomaso Pantera, which was on display); and IT professional Matt Kies, who directed the Festival’s marketing and social media (and drives a Persian Blue Lotus Evora).
Matt — who, with his wife Roxy Hoveyda, organized the Hollin Hills 4th of July picnic and other big community get-togethers for years — was also the Master of Ceremonies for the Festival’s “Style Celebration”: a parade of midcentury cars, accompanied by models dressed to match. Matt kept things moving along snappily from center stage, and Roxy herself was part of the fun, too — it turns out she was the model for Tom Kuester’s eye-catching posters, which depict a radiant, hair-in-the-wind Valkyrie riding a black Ferrari stallion into (we guess?) automotive Valhalla.
The organizers estimate that some 40,000 people came to the event, including a healthy contingent of Hollin Hillers. We spotted Tom Voskuil and Lynn Umemoto, Corey Meche and Jenna Benyounes, John (Yoni) and Catherine Korona, Christine Kitzmuller and Ed Murphy, Justino Abad, and many more. It was a great day — huge thanks to Tom Kuester, Matt Kies and Roxy Hoveyda for helping keep automotive style alive!
— Stephen Brookes
The automotive glitterati of Hollin Hills were out in force at the Speed and Style Festival, including (from left) Lynn Umemoto, Jenna Benyounes, Corey Meche, and Roxy Hoveyda