Classic Chrysler 300 Club car show draws crowds to Asheville

The show was part of the Chrysler 300 Club International’s Spring 2026 meet in Asheville, a five-day gathering that ran May 27-31 and was billed as the club’s 55th annual Spring Meet. Club materials said the group holds two meets each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and its 300 series cars, often called letter cars, span model years 1955 through 1970. The Asheville meet was hosted by Heath Towson, with the DoubleTree Asheville Biltmore Hotel listed as the host hotel.

That setup mattered far beyond car collecting. Coxe Avenue has long carried the weight of Asheville’s automotive history, with Buncombe County Special Collections describing it as downtown’s first motor mile and the place to see the latest automotive wares in the 1950s and 1960s. By bringing the club’s polished Chrysler 300s back to that stretch, the show reactivated a street that was built around car culture and still serves as a corridor for restaurants, breweries and shops in downtown Asheville.

The event also fit the city’s current direction for the corridor. Asheville’s Coxe Avenue Streetscape project is aimed at improving safety and the pedestrian experience for people using the street, a goal that matched the scene on Saturday as visitors moved slowly past the cars, storefronts and sidewalks. In a city where tourism often arrives through scenery, food and arts, niche events like this one become public-facing neighborhood boosters, giving local businesses an influx of foot traffic and giving the street itself a vivid burst of visibility.