Rolling out the past on Smith Street

Since his retirement in 2003 from the Shelter Island Refuse Service, a household and commercial collection business, Fred Ogar has devoted himself to a second collection career — finding vintage cars and bringing them home.

And the word “vintage” should be taken very literally in this case.

Mr. Ogar’s collection — 16 cars in all — include some of the first to have been mass-produced by Henry Ford at the start of the 20th century.

At the back of the Smith Street home of Mr. Ogar, 84, and his wife Dorothy, sits a large barn-like structure that is a shrine to American ingenuity. The inside is lined with Ford Model T’s and Model A’s, the first automobiles that were engineered and designed meticulously, were durable and attractive, and most of all, could be afforded by masses of Americans.

In addition to the cars, the shrine has all kinds of automobilia, including numerous pedal cars, a traffic light and many car-related photos. There’s also a trophy wall, a testament to the cars Mr. Ogar has restored.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the collection is that many of these beauties are fit to drive. Many of their motors run better than they did when they first got off the assembly line, and Mr. Ogar and his son-law, Henry Jacobs, regularly drive them to vintage car shows around Long Island. Luckily Mr. Ogar and Mr. Jacobs won’t have to drive these centurion cars too far for their next show. On Saturday, June 29, and if it rains, Sunday, June 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Mr. Ogar and Mr. Jacobs will take a selection of their cars to the Shelter Island Historical Society’s Antique and Classic Car Show at Fireman’s Field.

The Society is expecting 200 vintage cars from all over Long Island and as far afield as New England. The production dates of the classic cars are from the 1910s and 1920s and also include sports cars, family cars and trucks from the 1950s though the 1970s.

The marketing research firm, IBISWORLD, reports that last year the classic car business had revenues topping $2 billion, with the top collectibles being Italian, British and German vintage rides and American muscle cars and antiques. You’ll see a selection of all these at the car show.

A life-long Islander, Mr. Ogar remembers a Shelter Island during his childhood in the 1930s and 1940s still dotted with small family farms. His Shelter Island High School graduating class had seven students.

He speaks easily about the Island’s past, telling a visitor recently about prohibition in the 1920s, when the Island was “a smuggler’s paradise. The car collection serves as another conduit to the past. Walking into his private automotive museum, filled with the fully functioning vintage cars, brings the past eerily close to June 2019.

Mr. Ogar, pointing to a 1922 Model T, said it went for around $300 when Ford produced it. Today, a mint-condition Model T, according to the Internet site Autotrader, will cost $20,000.

Mr. Jacobs shares his father-in-law’s passion. Together, the two scour the Internet in search of parts. Almost all of their vehicles are painstakingly reconstructed by hand. Mr. Jacobs downplayed his expertise, saying that as “someone not mechanically inclined, if I could fix one of these up anyone can.”

But anyone getting up close to these beautifully maintained vehicles would disagree.

A handful of the cars in the selection are known as “survivors,” Mr. Ogar said, or those not reconstructed, but in more or less their original conditions. These survivors somehow managed to avoid the scrap yard for nearly a century, a little worse for wear, but mostly unscathed.

“Everyone loves a survivor, ” Mr. Jacobs said.

The real joy in antique cars, he added, comes in driving them more than showing them. But he, like other owners of vintage vehicles — or any collector of anything — also enjoys talking and comparing notes with others about shared passions. That will be on display this weekend at Fireman’s Field as well.

General admission to the show is $10, $5 for children over the age of 6, and free for those under the age of 6.

Registration for the show is $30. Island resident registration is $15. The registration fee admits the driver and one passenger, and each additional passenger in the exhibiting vehicle is $10.

Funds raised will help support the Shelter Island Historical Society’s educational programs and activities and the Shelter Island Fire Department.

For more information, write to : [email protected].