This video by AmericaJR.com at the recently completed Rendezvous Back to Route 66 car show at San Manuel Stadium in San Bernardino, California, is illuminating.
In short, this year’s event — presented by the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce — is an effort to keep a smaller version of the Route 66 Rendezvous alive. The original Rendezvous once drew more than 600,000 people on a typical weekend, but it was canceled after the 2012 show in the wake of the City of San Bernardino’s bankruptcy and the gutting of the San Bernardino Convention and Tourism Bureau.
One takeaway from the video is attendees are itching to take their classic cars back to San Bernardino’s streets — and Route 66. But chamber president Judi Penman made it pretty clear that’s not going to happen soon for a variety of reasons.
In the wake of the Rendezvous’ cancellation, the nearby city of Ontario, California, has hosted the Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion. However, Ontario never was on Route 66, and the event sits a good distance away from the Mother Road. So appropriating the Route 66 name seems, at the least, disingenuous.
(Image from the 2012 Route 66 Rendezvous by Thom Trafford via Flickr)