Steamboat Springs — Standing next to his mother, 3-year-old Vincent Schierenberg, blond hair sticking out from beneath a light green baseball hat, extended his right arm toward a black 1962 Chevrolet Impala.

“That’s cool,” he said.

Vincent’s mother, Zoe, said her family was visiting Steamboat Springs from Delta and they happened upon the Motorhead Madness car show Sunday afternoon on Yampa Street on their way to rent tubes to float down the river.

The show, organized by the Steamboat Car Club, was an opportunity for local car enthusiasts to get together and show their cars, Car Club member Patrick Browning said. He said the 5-year-old group is pretty casual. There are no membership fees or meetings. In addition to showing cars during Steamboat’s 4th of July parade, the Labor Day weekend Wild West Air Fest, and cruising Lincoln Avenue on the third Thursday of each month, Browning said Motorhead Madness gave them another opportunity to gather and talk about cars.

“It’s just for the love of the cars,” said Browning, who was showing his 1969 Rambler American.

The club started after Candy Bunn volunteered with Mike Gotchey, a local veterinarian, on ranch calls throughout Routt County. Bunn said she noticed classic cars – stashed away in barns or on properties in the county – that she’d never seen on the road. So she told her husband, Maury, to see whether they could find a way to get them out into the public.

“That’s how a lot of classic cars start,” he said. “They’re junkers in a field.”

Maury Bunn, who was displaying his 1967 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser Wagon and 1965 Shelby Cobra replica Sunday, said the car club started with a classified ad in the newspaper. It since has grown to include 250 people on the club’s mailing list.

The Motorhead Madness show Sunday also included a contingent from Craig’s car club, Colorado Cruisers. President George Vassek said 13 cars, including his 1957 Chevy Wagon, made their way from Craig to Steamboat for the show.

“Steamboat’s just like Craig,” he said. “There are a lot of cars in town, and people don’t get them out. They need them out to show them.”

Other youngsters who attended the event with their families had similar responses to that of Vincent Schierenberg.

Wynn Gwozdz, a 5-year-old visiting Steamboat with his family from Boulder, marveled at some of the other 30 or so cars on display. He said his favorite was a black 1932 Ford because, “It’s cool.” His sister, 8-year-old Ella, had a little more to say about the Ford, which also was her favorite car at the show.

“The new cars, they all kind of look the same,” she said. “The old cars are all different.”

Jerry Alexander, who spends about a month in Steamboat each summer from Lindale, Texas, brought his two daughters to the car show in his 1966 Volkswagon bus.

Alexander said he went to the show “because it’s groovy.”

“Even the kids are car nuts,” he said. Alexander added that his 11-year-old daughter, Claire, preferred the Chevy Corvettes, while 5-year-old daughter, Carly, also liked the ’62 Impala.

For Steamboat resident Tony Cacioppo, car shows such as Motorhead Madness take him back to a time when cars were of better quality and designed with unique styling – what made American-made manufacturing the best in the world.

“With such a great tradition of American cars, I wonder how we got into the mess we’re in today with American car manufacturers,” said Cacioppo, who owns a 1977 Porsche 911S and a 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. “These cars are still running, beautiful and timeless. Maybe we should return to the old tradition of car manufacturing.”