By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
If you happened to be driving by Carl’s Auto Sales Saturday that was Barney Fife you saw in uniform – but he was wasn’t handing out parking tickets or putting his bullet in his gun.
For the second Saturday in a row Bucyrus was home to a car show as Carl’s Auto Sales was host to the seventeenth annual D.A.R.E. Car Show. A few familiar cars from T.V. land were on display as the 1963 Galaxy 500 Police Cruiser from the Andy Griffith Show was on display with Massillon native Todd Beckett playing the role of Barney Fife.
“I have had the car for seven years, and did the refurbishment and customization myself,” Beckett said. “I’m out pretty much every weekend going to a car show. I think my favorite part has been going down the highway in the car while I get 40 smiles per mile.”
The auto show featured close to 60 cars helping raise money for Crawford County’s D.A.R.E. program.
“Every penny we raise takes care of my graduations, my D.A.R.E. rally, handouts and stuff like that. So that is where we use all this money it goes straight into my D.A.R.E. programs, this is one of my big fundraisers. ” Crawford County D.A.R.E. Officer Chris Martin said.
Beckett said that Andy Griffith show cast members Betty Lynne, Maggie Peterson, and Rodney Dillard have paid a visit to his homage to Mayberry.
Mark Koon from Galion also had a tribute to the Andy Griffith Show on display at the Car Show. Koon had a 1945 Ford truck customized to look like Goober Pyle’s truck from the television show.
Pearl Gamble, who won the Best ’50’s custom classic car at the 2001 Graffiti Cruise for his 1957 Ford Thunderbird, missed the cruise due to prior engagements in Montgomery Township; however the red T-Bird was on display for the D.A.R.E. Car Show.
“I have two Thunderbirds, this 1957 and a 2005 when it was reintroduced,” Gamble said. “They are both red hardtops with red interiors.”
New Washington resident Todd Fike was spending the afternoon at the show with his son Alex while also displaying his 1979 Pontiac Trans Am.
“I purchased the car about three years ago. I have just had to do minor work on the car, but it is always a work in progress,” Fike said.
While the skies were overcast for the first part of the car show, the sun came out from behind the clouds in the afternoon, prompting Rod Lucas to put a protective cover over his chrome air filter on his 1962 Corvette.
“With a chrome air filter the sun can heat up the chrome to the point it will blister the paint, in rare cases it has been known to catch the fiberglass on Corvettes on fire,” Lucas said.
The auto group the Night Prowlers presented the car show. Night Prowler member and Crestline Mayor Dave Sharrock was on hand to help out with the show.
“I do it for D.A.R.E. all the proceeds go to the Crawford County D.A.R.E. program, and if we can even keep one kid off drugs it is worth it,” Sharrock said.
Saturday’s D.A.R.E. Car Show raised $870 for the Crawford County D.A.R.E. program. A photo gallery of the car show is on the Photo page.