Taken during a stop while on their 2008 fall cruise to Granbury, Texas, 25 members of the Cowtown Mopars club made the 100-mile round trip in their Mopars.
Club on the Mooove
The Cowtown Mopars Performance Team is going strong, boasting 140 very active club members, a packed slate of events, and, of course, an eye-popping entourage of Mopar® cars, past and present.
Words: Darren Jacobs
The Cowtown Mopars Performance Team, located in Fort Worth, Texas (hence the Cowtown moniker) began life in 1985 as a small gathering of Mopar® enthusiasts coming together to share their common passion. Fast forward 25 years later. The club has grown by leaps and bounds, now 140 members strong, and is set to celebrate the organization’s silver anniversary in 2010.
Although based in Fort Worth, Cowtown Mopars club members are spread out all over the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. The bustling club schedules monthly club meetings, cruises and get-togethers throughout the year. The Cowtowners also organize two huge, tent-pole car shows which bookend their season: The Mopar Round Up, staged in April, and a Salvation Army Toy Drive/Car Show in December. Both events are held at the club’s sponsoring dealership, Allen Samuels Dodge. Last year the club filled three pickups full of toys and escorted the shipment crosstown to the Salvation Army in a convoy of Mopars.
The passion of club members also extends to the drag strip. The club is eight-time (and running) champions of the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge, a racing event which pits various car clubs against one another. Participants acquire points for each pass they make down the strip. Obviously, the Cowtown Mopars have delivered a Mopar-style beat down to the opposition in recent years.
“We’ve blown the Mustang club out of the water,” said Kirk Maisenbacher, a club board member and editor of the group’s newsletter. “The North Texas Corvette club can’t compete with us. We’re pretty strong.”
Membership qualifications are fairly lenient: If you have a love of Mopar, you can join the Cowtown Mopars. The club’s vehicle roster runs the gamut from classic muscle cars to current hot rides, such as the Dodge Challenger. There are a lot of truck guys and gals in the club as well. “This is Texas,” Maisenbacher added.
The club also features a Car of The Year Award. Members pick from among twelve Car of the Month award-winning vehicles to decide the Car of The Year winner. Taking the honors in 2008 was Mike Wilmas’ 1967 Dodge Dart GT Super Stock clone. The cars are featured on the club’s regularly updated Web site, www.cowtownmopars.com The fresh content on the site speaks to the vitality of the club.
“There are so many people out there who love Mopars because it’s not the mainstream,” said Maisenbacher, owner of a 2007 Dodge Dakota and a prized 1975 Dodge Dart. “I’ve had so many people approach me wanting to check out the car or the engine. It’s different. It’s not the norm.
“If I have a problem with my car, there are guys from the club who have been working on A-Bodies longer than I’ve been alive, and they’ll say, ‘Sure, come on over. I’ll show you how to fix it.’ The knowledge base is phenomenal. Everybody is willing to lend a hand. We love getting together as a club. We just hang out and talk shop and cars. It’s just fun.”
Think your Mopar club deserves to be featured in a future Mopar Nation column? E-mail us at editor@moparmagazine.com with information and photographs about your group. Your organization of Mopar maniacs might just be featured in an upcoming issue of Mopar Magazine!
