Auto Club spokesman Tommy Gregg said the annual event on Depot Street attracted 228 paid antique and classic cars and street rods, plus several dozen cars owned by club members, or members of a supporting local car club, the Ridge Runners.

"The weather was as hot as the automobiles," said Jann Mirkov, executive director of Main Street: Greeneville, which also sponsored the event. "We had a great event, a steady crowd all day long, and we survived the heat," Mirkov said.

Mirkov said the club's new sound system worked well, providing "oldies" rock 'n roll that could be heard all along the street.

The new sound system also allowed announcements about door prizes and food to be made "without blaring," she said.

A colorful T-shirt sold at the event featured two outstanding representative automotive examples, a rare 1926 Rickenbacker roadster owned by Ron Jones, of Greeneville, restored to its original condition, and a 1940 Ford two-door sedan that owner Richard Broyles has turned into an eye-popping radical custom.

Broyles' pearl champagne sedan won the Mayor's Trophy at this year's Big Bubba's Fun Run in Mosheim, which was no surprise, since it has twice won its class in International Show Car Association competitions.

Broyles said it took him four years to complete the car, working from his own sketches.

In a time when many street rods have Fiberglas bodies that can be ordered on the Internet, the 1940 Ford is a rarity, all metal. Broyles is a retiree from Eastman Chemical Co. The Ford shows he is also a craftsman and a sculptor in metal.

Broyles has trailered the handsome coupe to competitions as far away as Green Bay, Wis., and Chicago. He trailered it to Greeneville from Jonesborough, though he parked the trailer on a nearby hill and drove the car a few blocks to the show, to hear its LS1 Corvette engine burble.

The Cruise-In did not officially start until 2 p.m., but so many beautiful cars were parked along Depot Street by noon that the crowd began gathering.

For the next several hours, heads no doubt turned all over Greeneville as cars that haven't been seen on the street in decades "cruised" into town and turned onto Depot Street, looking their best.

Becky Dossett's turqoise '55 T-bird appeared nearly perfect, right down to its tires --sassy whitewalls worthy of the name --with the white part radiating at least five or six inches out from the rims.

A few cars down, a 1965 Buick Sport Wagon with a fresh, factory-correct Willow Green paint job and a surfboard bungee-corded to the luggage rack was parked next to a cherry-red 1963 split-window Corvette.

Both cars looked like they had just left the showroom, though Chris Davis, of Jonesborough, the 'Vette's owner, smiled at the compliment but said, "Don't look too close."

The Buick's owner, Martin Anglin, also of Jonesborough, was willing to point out the handful of things that were not strictly original in his vehicle, like the rosewood steering wheel (from another Buick) and a tachometer.

Everything else was as it would have been, and looking at it was almost transporting, for people who grew up eagerly waiting for new models to roll into showrooms in the 1960s.

For George Collins, curator of the Andrew Johnson Museum at Tusculum College, standing in the midst of so much automotive beauty and muscle reminded him of the time his father brought home a new Chrysler 300, a performance car in sheep's clothing in those days. The car rumbled into the Collins driveway so impressively, Collins recalled, that his mother refused to ride to church in it.

John Yeip, of Greeneville, said strolling among the muscle cars made him wish he had never sold the Hemi Baracuda he once used for daily transportation.

For a Greeneville Sun reporter, the event brought to mind his 1959 English Ford Anglia that got 39 miles per gallon, and a 1966 Mercury Cougar that got considerably less.

But it wasn't all nostalgia.

Several cars were brand-new, and gorgeous, such as the lineup of tricked-out Roush Mustangs, one with doors that swung up and back -- instead of out just out -- that looked like wings.

The high-tech Mustangs were parked across the street from a row of Volkwagen beetles from the 50s and 60s, and some vans, one a Kombi pop-up camper ready to take the family to a national park, and the other a microbus that looked like it had taken too many road trips to Grateful Dead concerts.

Street rods predominated, too many to mention. But Archie Fannon's black 1940 Ford pickup was memorable.

It started life, no doubt, as a handsome, serviceable vehicle, but now it has a Fiberglas body, with elements Fannon said were manufactured in different part of the U.S. and Canada. "It all bolted together," Fannon said. "I guess I was just lucky."

Luck helps, but Fannon's car showed the kind of craftsmanship that money can't buy. It looked to have an inch or two of ground clearance, but dashboard activated air shocks can raise it up in case there is a speed bump, the owner said.