(West Okoboji)—A new showroom in the Iowa Great Lakes not only features vintage automobiles, but also a step back in time.
Okoboji Classic Cars is located at the intersection of Highway 86 and Jeppeson Road in West Okoboji. While the business is primarily known for restoring vintage automobiles, visitors will feel as though they’ve been transformed to the 1960’s as its museum/show rooms consist of time period streetscapes of Grand Avenue in Spencer and the Roof Garden…complete with storefronts and murals painted by lakes area artist Jack Rees, who works out of a studio in the same building. 
Toby Shine, owner of Okoboji Classic Cars, says construction of the 65,000 square foot building was completed in September and work on the streetscapes and murals just got started this past December. The detail of the storefronts and streetscapes is nothing short of incredible. Shine says a lot of painstaking research was done to make sure the streetscapes and building fronts are true representations of what they were actually like…(click here for coment.) “Well the research was just a labor of love by many, many people. Brad Howe had a bunch of pictures of the Spencer streetscape that we got a year ago; the Clark Museum with Okoboji, and other people with pictures and stories to help make it come true.”
Shine expects they’ll be adding even more details once more people have had a chance to tour the facility and go through some of their personal photo albums. He says it likely will be a work in progress for many years to come…(click here for comment.) “These types of project always stay a work in progress. There’s always more stuff coming out of the woodwork that needs to be found and put out on display, and a lot of artwork left for Jack to do.”
Shine says originally he was not planning to have the museum/showroom open to the public. But he says he’s changed his mind now that word of the facility is starting to get around…(click here for comment.) “I just decided to open it to the public. Like I said earlier we weren’t going to do that. But the demand has been there so you know, we’re going to be doing tours Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 to 5:00 and it should be a fun place for people.”
The cost will be $10 per person, which can be put toward a purchase in the gift shop or Jack Rees’ studio.
Shine adds the facility will eventually feature more than 28,000 square feet of murals, including an already completed one featuring some of the shoreline around Smith’s Bay of West Lake Okoboji.
Not only does the facility represent a step back in time, but it also consists of hundreds of totally restored vintage automobiles available for sale.
The restoration business employs eight people and has state of the art equipment, including a downdraft paint booth. Shine says they restore vintage automobiles from throughout the country.
