By Jason KUROSU

For 20 years, Glendale has hosted the annual Cruise Night, a showcase of Southern California’s classic cars. Despite all the car lovers and enthusiasts present for Saturday night’s five block event, Brand Boulevard was reduced to walking traffic from Milford Street to Broadway, as around 250 pre-1979 cars lined the median and sides of Brand for an outdoor showroom of antiques, muscle cars and more.

In addition to the cars, Cruise Night, hosted by former KEARTH 101 DJ Brian Beirne, featured musical acts on a main stage near Milford such as the Tokens and the Surfaris, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the hit “Wipe Out.”

Cruise Night also featured an array of sponsors in what Community Services Manager Onnig Bulanikian described as “the first time the event has been fully funded by both corporate and community sponsors.” Previously, funding for the event had come from redevelopment agencies.

The 20th annual event drew a crowd that nearly filled the entirety of the road, with people admiring the glistening exteriors and the engines on display beneath propped open hoods.

Tom Patino of Burbank was pleased to hear a woman tell him that a car much like his 1979 Datsun 280ZX was her “dream car.”

“It was my dream car, too, all those years back,” said Patino, who first started taking his Datsun to car shows last year. Patino had considered selling the car at one time or another but instead kept making improvements to the dashboard, the carpets, the fuel injection and more. It wasn’t until last year that “it felt ready” to take to Cruise Night 2012 and other shows such as the Z-Car Nationals, where Patino’s car won first place.

“The older it got, the more I realized there weren’t more like it anymore,” said Patino. “Now getting rid of it would be like cutting off my arm.”

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  Dan HOLM, Jason Kurosu