WILBRAHAM – The Wilbraham Hill Climb presented on July 8 featured numerous vintage automobile and motorcycle displays, live music, Peter Pan Bus Line’s GM Futureliner and a series of races to the top of Monson Road.

The Wilbraham Hill Climb is run every other year in remembrance of the 1908 event put on by the Automobile Club of Springfield.  The 2017 event attracted at least 5,000 car enthusiasts and spectators Wilbraham Department of Public Works employee and Hill Climb committee member Paul Maguire estimated.  

Though the event was intended to last all day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., at about 2 p.m. it was announced that the final races would not go on due to cars overheating and being unable to make it up Monson Road.

“People can’t forget these cars are old, the cars were overheating, and the heat was killing the drivers in the suits and helmets,” Maguire said.

Spectators for the Wilbraham Hill Climb weren’t only from Western Massachusetts.  Wayne Carini, star of the TV show “Chasing Classic Cars,” was in attendance.  In fact, onlookers weren’t only from the United States.  Maguire’s family from Ireland made the trip across the Atlantic to witness the Hill Climb for themselves.

Though there were technical difficulties, the event is one that will be put on again in two years.

“Some of these cars were from 1905, you’re going to have issues,” Maguire said.

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