MotorIoway tour starts today

Around 100 vintage cars will leave Charles City today (Thursday) on the annual summer MotorIoway tour. Organizer John Swanson says the 500-mile summer tour was created four years ago for those who can’t make the original MotorIoway one-thousand mile fall tour. He says there are people like teachers who can’t get away in the early fall, and they also encourage children and grandchildren to come along. He says they don’t have a theme, other than their general theme of “You gotta know the territory.” The first ever tour started during Iowa’s Sesquicentennial as a way to see the state from the less traveled roadways. Swanson says that continues today.He says they try to stay on the county highways, and stay off the four-lane divided interstates and the more heavily traveled state highways. He says they’ll visits museums and other attractions along the way. The only restriction is the vehicles have to be models made before 1976. He says they believe, and the people who participate that you should drive your old vehicles. He says they don’t care what kind of vehicle it is. He says they have everything from a Model A Fort to a 1976 M-G midget. One year they even had a vintage cement mixer along for the ride. This year’s tour winds through northeast Iowa and includes stops in Decorah, Waverly , Fayette, Postville, New Albin, Waukon, Monona, Arlington and Ossian.