Car show is a Rohring good time

The 36th Annual Edgar Rohr Memorial Antique Car Meet on Sept. 17 drew a large crowd of vehicle enthusiasts, even though it wasn’t a picture-perfect festival day. About 150 owners drove or trailered their classic (at least 25 years old) vehicles to the show; most were parked on the Manassas Museum’s lawn.

Father and son Newman and Lee Adkins of Manassas each brought a vehicle. Newman had a reddish-orange 1971 Chevy truck, which he calls Nightmare. In the passenger seat was his prop, Angel, a jazzy-looking mannequin he takes along for the ride.

“I’ve had this truck for about 10 years,” he said. “We built it from a kit and that took two years. I did all the paint and body work. This truck is special because the top is chopped four inches. It won first place at Carlisle [Pa.] five years ago because it was different.”

His son brought an orange 1967 Chevy Camaro. “We built this together from the ground up,” he said. It was a father-and-son hobby. They built three trucks, “then I wanted to build a car. This took one year,” the younger Adkins continued.

He chose a Camaro because it was the first model year and the only one with wing glass. He also liked that the front differed from subsequent designs.

Newman Adkins said he has sponsored the Bull Run Street Rod Club, which has met at the Burger King near the 234 Bypass in Manassas for about eight years. Members park their cars and invite people to admire them. “It’s a place to hang out on Saturday evening. We try to get the old crowd with the new crowd. It’s very family oriented.”

Sharon Blank said she and her husband David had been looking for a 1932 Ford Hi Boy when they finally found one two years ago; she said they liked the style of that vehicle. They customized it with pinstriping and a few minor details. They plan add chrome during the winter. The Blanks take their car to shows and drive it on weekends in good weather.

“David found it at a car show and said this is for us,” she said. “This Hi Boy has a 350 small block Chevy engine and can go from zero to 80 [miles per hour] in two seconds. It’s a lot of fun.”

Read the full story in the Manassas and Bull Run Observer newspapers.