Vintage car tours roll through the city
BY SHAYE WEAVER
As the hands of time turn, the wheels of history
roll.
In a city full of buses, a new tour service
that uses vintage Jazz Age cars to shuttle customers
around launched Tuesday.
Called Nowaday, the service essentially chauffeurs
tourists and New Yorkers alike around historical
landmarks while giving them a ride in one
of 12 restored vintage cars, including a 1928 Ford
Model, a 1932 Chrysler Imperial and a 1931 Chevrolet
Series AE.
On Monday, amNewYork gave the tour a spin
with co-founder Jaime Getto. Getto and the tour
guide, who was dressed in 1920-era driving garb,
picked this reporter up at MetroTech Center before
heading out for a jaunt in Brooklyn. Soon, admirers
of all ages started taking photos with their cellphones
and giving thumbs up to the guide.
With the turn of a key, the 1931 Chevy Series AE
roared to life.
“It’s a head-turner every time we go out,” Getto
said.W
hile the company, which was founded by two
28 year olds, Getto and Heather Stupi, plans on
expanding to other boroughs and neighborhoods
(like Downtown in December) and eventually other
cities, the tour currently does a 60-minute-long
loop in midtown, circling from Central Park South
to Carnegie Hall and from Grand Central Station
to the Flatiron Building and back up, passing by
several landmarks along the way.
With all the comforts of a modern-day car, the
Chevy’s sound system played the company’s Spotify
playlist of electro swing/house music as the tour
guide/tour operations guy, Josh Wardell, filled his
three passengers in on New York City facts, like
how one in 38 Americans call New York City home
and the origin story of the name, “The Big Apple.”
“Our mission is to tell the story of every city
we’re in — New Yorkers who take the tour, even
lifetime New Yorkers, get schooled in the history
of the city,” Getto said. “We’re taking the content
very seriously.”
Each driver/tour guide, who is trained extensively
both inside and outside the car, speaks in character
Tour guide Josh in his 1920s outfit poses next to a 1931 Chrysler Model B-70, which is one
of 12 vintage cars Nowaday uses.
and narrates the tour — even through traffic.
Improvisation is definitely a part of the experience,
too. Between facts, tour guide Josh shared his favorite
candy — a piece of salt water taffy and talked
about his time driving around the city (which looks
quite different than it did in his time).
Getto and Stupi wanted to offer history tours in
vintage cars because they were less-than-impressed
with the typical bus tours in the city that they’d
take visitors on.
“It’s a fun thing to do that’s more than dinner
and drinks and it doesn’t make you feel like an outsider
or tourist,” Getto said.
Choosing Jazz Age vehicles to escort people
PHOTO BY SHAYE WEAVER
around in was done to fit the story of New York
City in particular — when a lot of the now-landmarks
were going up in Midtown, these were the
first cars on the road then, she said.
When Nowaday expands to L.A., they’ll use cars
from the 1950s-60s to best tell those stories, she
added.
“There’s a mystique to it — people really only see
these cars on a movie shoot or at a car show.
People say they feel like celebrities when they
take a ride,” she said. “It feels like it belongs in
NewYork City.”
To find out more and book a tour, visit nowaday.
com. Admission starts from $49.
18 November 14, 2019 TVG Schneps Media