Category Archives: Tennessee

A brilliant suggestion to Honda: Finance the losers

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Project Drive-In logoAs we continue our long, extended Drive-In Project journey, we will pause to thank Honda for its generous support in supplying nine digital projectors to struggling drive-in theaters. And then we will pass along a great suggestion posted yesterday evening.

The Johnson City TN Press ran an article about the State Line Drive-In of nearby Elizabethton and its reaction to Honda’s voting extension giving the State Line another chance. One Gabe Curde, possibly a Johnson City real estate agent, left a superb suggestion as a comment to that story: “Why doesn’t Honda offer 0% financing on these projectors to any half way qualified drive-in owners who don’t win a contest?”

That’s simply brilliant. Consider the stories about the Apache (Globe AZ), making it more famous on its deathbed than it ever was in life. Owner Bobby Hollis told a Cronkite News Service reporter, “Nobody is gonna loan me the money to convert to digital. Trust me, I’ve looked.” Honda has the resources to offer Hollis and any other drive-in owner some really good financing on projectors. And it would even help publicize Honda’s financing arm for wavering new-car buyers. C’mon, Honda, how about it?

Twin-City Drive-In plans to “close or sell”

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Twin City drive-in photo from 1952As we near the end of the voting for Honda’s Project Drive-In, it’s sobering to remember what could happen to the drive-ins that don’t finish among the winners. The Johnson City (TN) Press reported that the Twin City Drive-In of nearby Bristol may close for good unless its owner can find someone willing to buy the place and install a digital projector.

The Bristol News also ran a story on the Twin City, which sits near Bristol Motor Speedway. The News wrote that the Twin City’s marquee “recently showed a ‘For Sale’ sign posted during race week to see if there was any interest in the theater, priced at $4.5 million.” (No one bought it at that price.) According to that article, the drive-in’s yearly property tax bill had risen from $4,000 to $20,000 because of business attracted by the race track.

The Press article quoted Twin City owner Danny Warden as saying, “We’re going to show through this year, and unless something changes, that might be it. You never know, though, we’ve had a couple of people who say they might be interested in buying it. If someone buys it and switches to digital, then it will stay open.”

That price tag looks a little steep to me, but I sure hope someone finds a way to buy this reportedly profitable drive-in and bring it into the digital age.

Project Drive-In roundup

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I’ll admit it. I’ve been so overwhelmed by the local media coverage of Honda’s Project Drive-In that it’s been hard to write. On one hand, I don’t especially want you to vote for some Florida drive-in over one on Ohio or vice versa. Heck, I’ve even noticed that Honda has added at least a couple drive-ins (such as the Apache) that weren’t there when voting started.

There are only so many ways I can spin the local news when it says that nearby drive-in X needs to convert to digital projection, and its best / only hope is if it is one of the Project Drive-In winners. So I’m just going to gather them all a bunch of them in this list. There are probably lots of interesting, fresh details here and there about each drive-in, but I’m going to let you discover them. If you find something sufficiently cool, post a comment about it, will you please?

Your candidates, alphabetized by state:

Whew! That’s 20 theaters so far. I’ll see how many more I can round up for our next installment.