Alex Shereba Jr. needed a car to get him back and forth to Stevens Trade School in 1972.

He and his late father, Alex Sr., found one at a shop in Delano — a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

“We found this car,” Shereba said of the 4-door hardtop. “I didn’t know much about cars at the time, but all I needed was to go to school in Lancaster.”

The car fit the bill, even though it was 15 years old.

“So it wasn’t new,” Shereba noted.

It cost $275, but taxes and the title transfer edged the price up to $310.

Fifty three years later, Shereba still has the car and often takes it to shows like Saturday’s second annual Tamaqua Car Show hosted by the Tamaqua Historical Society and Jukebox Cruisers Car Club.

When he graduated from Stevens Trade a year later, he kept the car on the road. With its roomy interior, he carpooled with others to work Air Products and Chemicals in Trexlertown.

“And then I wanted something newer, so I just stored this in the garage,” Shereba said.

He’d take the Chevy out on weekends, often with his father.

“We had the space, and the insurance was cheap in the 70s and 80s, so we kept it,” Shereba said.

Most of the car is original — minus its black color. When Shereba bought it, it was canyon coral — more like a pink.

“And a 20-year-old didn’t want to drive a pink car,” Shereba said.

The Chevy still has a logo from his alma mater — know known as the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology — displayed on the rear window.

He also added dozens upon dozens of 1957 Matchbox and other toy cars on the interior “ledge” below the rear window — it was his father’s idea.

“We put them on these shelves,” he said of the tiny vehicles. “Young and old, they get amazed by it.”

Close to 100 vehicles of all makes and models turned out for the show at the St. Luke’s parking lot on South Railroad Street. There were trucks, convertibles, passenger cars, sports cars — and even an ambulance.

Dale Lehman of Zion Grove admitted that when he bought his 1963 Plymouth Fury, it was a rusty “basket case.”

“There was no engine, no transmission,” Lehman said. “It was rotted.”

Lehman found the car listed by a Georgia seller on eBay about 20 years ago.

“There were black widow spiders in it,” Lehman said of the deadly arachnids. “The guy who sold it told me, ‘Watch when you do the wiring under the dash, so you don’t get bit by a spider.’”

A mechanic, Lehman knew the car needed a lot of work and hard-to-find parts.

“I searched the country. I found the grill in Idaho and some moldings in Ohio,” Lehman said.

It took about four years to complete.

“Because I’m a die-hard. I thought, ‘I’m not going to let this car go,’” he explained. “I have to get it finished.”

Donald Panzarella was on hand with his 1953 Ford Crestline Sunliner convertible. A cherry red color, he bought it in 1958.

“It’s not a car I take to go shopping,” admitted Panzarella, of Junedale.