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Rainbow of Corvettes brightens Hot Summer Nites (photo gallery)

Event Director Maureen Ohm said that the organizers were keeping an eye on the weather all night. But sometimes brief drizzle early in the evening did not prevent the car-crazy crowd away from Phillips Avenue.

"Sunshine brings the crowd," said Ohm. "It was very busy, but not as active as last year."

"There are only two there that are the same," Mark Bonnema of Sioux Center, Iowa, said.

Bonnema was visiting Sioux Falls with his father-in-law, Wayne Meerdink Sioux Center. Meerdink said he owned a Corvette and loves to visit trade shows such as Hot Summer Nites because he knows "what kind of work" is in the maintenance of the vehicle.

Working as the art Tweeten nine months of Lafayette, Calif., has spent his 1956 Corvette restoration. Tweeten was Hot Summer Nites assistant since he started, and attends every two years. Tweeten car has attracted the largest circle of spectators, of all city vehicles because of its unique appearance.Tweeten restored the front half of the car, paint it a bright red fire engine, but left the rear half rusted and the original paint job and wheels.

"People are more interested in the rear end," he said. "They like the look and feel of it." Tweeten saved the Corvette from a member of his house back from the Corvette Club that destroyed the car and parked under a tree in 1974. A photo book on the trunk shows that the car was buried under the metal and other debris until Tweeten bought it and pulled it free in September 2009.

He said he decided to stop the restoration of the car where it was because of the uniqueness of the rear end and the comments of some of his friends.

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