Every year, Robby Nielsen looks forward to coming to Rustoberfest in New Florence.

The resident from southern Gasconade County enjoys being part of an event that draws a lot of people from all over the Midwest checking out hot rods and older cars.

“It’s my favorite part of the year right here,” said Nielsen, who lives in Bland, which is west of Owensville. “Awesome cars, awesome people. You can’t beat this place, that’s for sure.”

Rustoberfest celebrated its 10th anniversary on Oct. 7-8 at the Old Settlers Picnic Grounds. The event had a pre-party on Oct. 7. The following day, it had a large display of cars, a swap meet, live music, a pin-up contest and food items.

“We just like to have a good time with good food and good people,” said Mike Andrews, who is one of the event coordinators.

Rustoberfest is held every second weekend of October. It is sponsored by Metalflakes, which is a nonprofit organization that includes Andrews, Aaron Gilbert, Daniel Kaminski, Joe Topel, Jack Brower and Jared Brower.

“We had all kinds of not so pretty and shiny cars,” Andrews said. “We had cool, old rusty cars. So we said we’re going to call it Rustoberfest because we’re having it in October.”

Andrews said he, along with Gilbert and Ben Oden, came up with the idea of Rustoberfest when they went to a car show 10 years ago.

“They quit having it, but we really liked it,” Andrews said. “We said, ‘Well, we’ll just have one like that.’ It was called The 100-Car Pile Up.’ We kind of did what they did. We kind of copied them.”

In its first year, Rustoberfest was held at the Old Settlers pavilion with a little over 70 cars. Now, it has a display of over 500 cars.

“After the third year, it kept growing by the hundreds every year,” Andrews said.

Andrews, who lives in Middletown, said when the Rustoberfest started growing, it started having issues with parking.

“We didn’t have much parking for spectators,” Andrews said. “That was a mess. When that happened, the Shriners took over the parking. Whatever we collect, we give half of the money to the Shriners for parking.”

This year’s pre-party included a performance by Homeless In Hollywood. Andrews said the pre-parties always draw a big crowd.

“We would be out here Friday night working and people would start showing up, parking and having a good time,” Andrews said. “So we thought, ‘We’ll, we can throw a band out here, too. We’ll fry fish and have a pre-party.’”

Nielsen drove his 1931 Model A car to Rustoberfest on Oct. 7. He spent the night at a hotel in the New Florence area.

Nielsen said he knew this year’s event was going to have another big turnout when he arrived there on the morning of Oct. 8.

“My buddy got here, then I got here not even an hour after him,” Nielsen said. “We were 100 cars in between each other. They give you a key chain. It’s got what number you were when you register. He had No. 64 and I was No. 169 and we were only 45 minutes apart. During those 45 minutes, they had 100 cars pull in.”

Nielsen started going to Rustoberfest in 2016.

“It was six years ago when I first got that car done,” Nielsen said. “I had so much fun that weekend that I’ve been coming here every year since.”