FREEPORT — Thousands of cars travel to and from Freeport on U.S. Route 20 every day, cruising the local stretch of the nation’s longest highway, which wraps around the Pretzel City on a route that reaches from coast-to-coast — just over 3,300 miles from Massachusetts to Oregon.

Some are on their way to work and some are heading home — and then there are some who are taking their new ride for a spin after signing on the dotted line at a Lake Carroll couple’s auto dealership. How can you tell which ones are which? Well, the commuters are probably in a hurry, but the owners of a new set of wheels? Well, they’re probably enjoying a leisurely ride — and they’re probably in kind of car that people once drove when they were going from shore to shore to see the USA in their Chevrolet.

AutoSmart, owned by Brian and Donna Caldwell of Lake Carroll, opened in April in a former visitors center east of Freeport on the four-lane federal highway, having moved from its previous location in Oswego in Kendall County. It sells a variety of vehicles — cars, trucks and even the occasional motorcycle — with most of its inventory stocked with classic and vintage rides.

From a classy Continental to a cool Comet, whether you want to sit in the lap of luxury or flex your muscle car, the Caldwells will be happy to put you in the driver’s seat of a vehicle that’s a perfect fit for your personality.

Having a vintage vehicle is a point of pride for owners who love to get out the wax and wax nostalgic about Detroit’s heyday. Just look at car shows: A summer weekend doesn’t go by when there’s not one somewhere, with the owners of head-turning hot rods and chromed cruisers showing off their rides to curious crowds.

Brian is familiar with that feeling. He’s sold classics for 15 years and he knows how passionate people are about their horsepower hobby, and he strives to make the dealership a place where they feel welcome — “the AutoSmart culture,” as he likes to call it.

“We want this to be a place for people to come and gather,” Caldwell said. “Saturday mornings you can grab a cup of coffee and talk about old cars at the conference table – that’s part of our culture. Sit out on the bench, bring your car. When you’re in a rural community, people want a place to gather. This is a home for car people.”

It’s also a place where they can shine.

Car people like their rides to look their best, and AutoSmart helps there, too. It carries the Chicago Jax Wax line of car care products, and it too is owned by the Caldwells as part of a national franchise out of Columbus, Ohio. Products include a variety of car waxes and polishes, wheel, glass and trim care, soaps and cleaners and care kits.

But don’t go pulling out that ratty old bath towel to put on the products. As any car enthusiast will tell you, it takes the right towel for the job, and AutoSmart has got you covered there, too. Towels and accessories are an important part of the car care ritual, Caldwell said, along with the proper way to apply the product, and he can help with both.

“This group of people wants to keep them looking as nice as they were when they came out of restorations,” Caldwell said. “What I always tell people is that there’s a bazillion products out there, and there’s a lot of great products out there. My thought process with this is that its process, towels and then product. It doesn’t matter how good the product is, if you don’t have a good process and don’t use good towels, the product’s not going to matter.”

AutoSmart largely deals with classic cars, which is anything 25 years or older, Caldwell said, but also sells newer vehicles. In most cases, a classic car isn’t likely to be someone’s primary ride, but rather something for pleasure — bringing it out on weekends or taking it to a car show or on a cruise.

As time rolls on, the inventory of what’s considered vintage just keeps on growing, with each decade becoming classics in their own right. Each generation has their own special memories behind the wheel. Maybe it was their first car, maybe they remember riding in Gramma and Grampa’s old Oldsmobile as grandkids, or tinkering under the hood with Dad’s Mustang growing up. There’s a powerful pull to nostalgia, and these days people like to hitch a ride to the past on anything from the 1930s all the way to the ‘90s.

“It’s funny to think that we had always thought it was the ’50s and ’60s, but it’s also now the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.,” Caldwell said. “The new generation is looking more towards those cars that they grew up with back in high school. If you were in high school in the ’80s, you might have had an ’80s Mustang or you might have had an ’80s IROC. With the square-bodied pickup trucks, I’ve had guys go, ‘I remember when I was in high school and had one of those.’”

“They’re going back and looking at these things now that they’ve got the income, or kids in college; they have that ‘let’s go buy something fun’ kind of thing.”

Classic cars weren’t always AutoSmart’s top priority when it first opened in 2010; the inventory back then was a little of everything, including campers. However, it took a friend of the Caldwells and a classic Corvette for them to find their niche in the auto market.

“When we first started out, we didn’t have the identity as classic cars; we were licensed to do cars, motorcycles and campers,” Caldwell said. “We started with a little bit of everything, but what really got us into classic cars was that one of our very, very good friends had a 1960s Corvette convertible and said, ‘Can you sell this?’ We said, ‘Yeah ...’ And literally, that was our first classic car that we sold. That one car launched us into where we are today.”

The Caldwells had lived at Lake Carroll on a part-time basis until recently becoming full-timers, and sought to bring their business closer to home. Moving AutoSmart was 3 years in the making until they finally found the right home for the business in the former Stephenson County Visitor Center. The new location’s soft opening was April 1, with a grand opening celebration on June 11, with a ribbon cutting, classic car show, flag raising ceremony, music from Lake Carroll DJ Ron Hennings, and food trucks from Copper Bee Coffee from Shannon and the Lanark VFW’s Mess Hall.

In just four months of being in business in northwest Illinois, Caldwell has enjoyed getting to know more people in the classic car community, and igniting others’ interests in it. Community leaders, too, have shown their appreciation by helping Caldwell make more connections around Freeport, he said.

“This community has open arms,” Caldwell said. “From the day we started with the process of purchasing the building to rezoning the property to what we needed it to be, to the county officials to the people in town, everybody’s been very welcoming to what we’re doing. The community didn’t have a business like this serving it. There’s other great car dealers in the area who have their own niche, and I look at us as complimenting those other dealers.”

The business is also spreading the word online, with help from Christina Barron, AutoSmart’s marketing and communication director. Barron brings a wealth of social media experience to the business which has helped Caldwell connect with the local community on Facebook and Instagram, driving more traffic to the lot, and driving more cars off the lot..

Barron said she’s enjoyed learning about the classic car culture as well.

“I didn’t know anything about cars, and now I’m spouting off years and details about them,” she said. “I love the old classic cars and the difference between them and seeing them progress. It’s crazy to notice even the small differences, and then learning the nuances of them.”

Some of AutoSmart’s oldest cars go back to before World War II: One of its oldest at the time of the grand opening was a 1936 Ford Roadster topless Street Rod. Some, like the Roadster, wait for a new owner inside the showroom, while others fill the lot outside drawing looks from passersby and driving traffic to the dealership, like a Ford Model T dressed in Sinclair Oil logos next to the building’s front door — a good parade car, Caldwell said.

Speaking of car cruises, that’s another part of the AutoSmart culture. The Caldwells hosted cruise nights every second Wednesday throughout the summer. The theme for the grand opening focused on General Motors, Fords were featured in July, Chrysler products were August’s theme and September’s was themed around cars featured in movies.

“The cruise nights are good for us because we have high traffic, high visibility, and we tried to find a night during the week that wouldn’t compete with another car show,” Caldwell said.

AutoSmart also sponsors local car shows, and continues to sponsor those around the business’ former home in Kendall County, sometimes setting up sales tents for Jax Wax products at them. The Kendall location also hosted blood drives, pet adoption events and fill-a-truck fundraisers for local food pantries — all of which the Caldwells intend to bring to the new location, while continuing to celebrate the classic car culture in the community.

“We wanted to create a culture for people to buy cars that wasn’t the typical car buying experience,” Caldwell said. “We want people to have a hassle-free approach.”

AutoSmart, 4596 East U.S. Route 20 in Freeport, is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Find it on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube; go to autosmartnetwork.com and chicagojaxwax.com or call 630-554-2285 for more information.