Steve Christianson shows his Thunderbolts Car Club jacket, with the large club patch on the back. The club was started in 1958 by some Blue Earth High School students and lasted into sometime in the 1960s.

Some people find their passion at an early age. And, for some guys, that passion is cars.

So it was for Steve Christianson and Dave Bleess.

“Yes, we liked cars, all the way back in high school,” Christianson says. “Call it a hobby, or maybe a sickness, but we had a group of guys who really enjoyed cars, and all of us were interested in cars – working on them, driving them, restoring them.”

They still are.

Bleess says some of the guys back in their high school days were into athletics, some were studious students and then the rest were car nuts.

“In 1958 we started a car club here in Blue Earth, and we called it the Thunderbolts,” Christianson says. “I have no idea why we picked that name. Dave was a senior and I was a junior back then.”

Both of them got jobs at gas/service stations, and loved working on cars.

“The Thunderbolts had a clubhouse,” Christianson explains. “It was an old gas station just south of where the former Detke-Morbec John Deere used to be. We painted it up pretty colorful.”

There the club members worked on their street rods and then went cruisin’ up and down Main Street.

It was a lot like the movie “American Graffiti,” they explain. That movie was set in the year 1962, and it was not a long time after 1962 the Thunderbolts Car Club had just dissolved.

“I don’t know, I guess we just all got out on our own, moved around, and the club sort of disappeared,” Christianson says. “I think we still have a checking account for the Thunderbolts; it might have $7 in the account.”

Their club was a bit different than others. They didn’t want to get that ‘bad boy’ reputation, so they did things like help people if they had engine trouble or had a flat tire. And they helped each other, by working on cars together.

Although the Thunderbolts Car Club disappeared sometime in the 1960s, their love of cars, particularly street rods, did not.

Fast forward to July 29, 1991, and the birth of the Blue Earth Auto Fair, Inc.

“We had always wanted to have our own car show,” Christianson says. “So (attorney) Arvid Wendland helped us incorporate as a non-profit.”

There were six founding members: Larry LaMont, Steve Christianson, John L. Sabin, Scott Wiltse, James Wirkus and Ronald Hogstad. Bleess and some others joined later, and there are about a dozen members now.

“The founding members each threw in $20, so we started with $120,” Christianson says. “That was 30 years ago and we have had a car show in Blue Earth every year since. Well, except for last year, because of COVID.”

At first they had the show in June, at the Faribault County Fairgrounds. But the Blue Earth Chamber of Commerce came to them and asked if they would have it as part of Giant Days, in July.

“We said yes and just kept it at the fairgrounds,” Christianson says. “People love it there because of the nice shade.”

The other reason people like the Blue Earth show is because the organizers try to keep it simple.

“We let them park their car pretty much where they want,” Bleess says. “If they come here with someone else they can sure park next to each other.”

They also decided to have the participants themselves do the judging, which was questioned at first, but now everyone agrees it works pretty well that way.

“We did cut down on the amount of classes and trophies this year,” Bleess says. “After not having a show last year, we didn’t really know how many would show up. And, there was a 20 percent chance of rain, and weather is what can keep participants away.”

But, he added they will be back up to the full number of trophies next year.

However, it won’t be Christianson and Bleess who will be in charge of the Auto Fair next year.

“We have been co-chairs for many years,” Christianson said. “It’s time for us to retire and let someone new take over.”

The two joke that since one of them is 79 and the other 80, they don’t want to have to run the Auto Fair from the nursing home. And they don’t want to go to the nursing home unless St. Luke’s puts in a car hoist so they can work on their street rods there, they say with a laugh.

The two taking over the reins as co-chairs of the Auto Fair are John Hansen and Kenny Haase.

“Blue Earth, and the city’s street department, has always been very helpful and the fairboard has always cooperated with our show,” Christianson says. “Our sponsors have been very good to us, and many of those businesses have donated to every show. We are very thankful to all of them.”

The two add that the Faribault County Historical Society has always been a part of it, with the food they make for dinner and by opening up their building. The Trinity Lutheran Church has opened up their fair stand, too, with coffee and cookies and other treats.

“If we have any money left after the show, we donate it,” Bleess says. “We have donated to the food shelf, Legion flags, hospice, things like that.”

This year’s show was pretty special, they note. Besides being the 30th one, members of the Minnesota Street Rod Association were at the show, judging cars that could be entered into their competition.

Three cars were chosen; one from Albert Lea and two from Fairmont.

There are about a dozen members of the Blue Earth Auto Fair committee. And they hold almost daily meetings.

“We get together every morning at McDonald’s for coffee and discussion,” Christianson says. Often that talk is about cars.

The guys still love to work on their cars, and restoring old cars is still their passion.

“Our street rods are kind of fading away,” Christianson says. “Now it is all about muscle cars, and horsepower – always more horsepower.”

In their day it was more about taking an old car and modernizing it and making it look good. They say their wives wanted to travel in comfort so they added air conditioning, power steering and brakes, and more to their old street rods.

First it was the Model T’s and A’s that went away from car shows as those owners got old and passed away; now it is the street rods, Christianson and Bleess say, which are disappearing, as the car enthusiasts like themselves are getting older.

Nonetheless, all these guys, no matter how old they are, still like going to car shows whenever they can. They have been to dozens of them around the country in the last 30 years.

And they still love their old classic, street rod cars.

Once a car nut, always a car nut, they say.