Picking their way around a dropped-and-chopped 1937 Chevy pickup at the Bend Elks Lodge on Saturday morning, Larry Rice and Skip Sechrist took turns pointing out every tiny surprising detail they came across.

In the back, a dozen or so ’30s era license plates had been secured together as a custom floor for the bed.

Up front, the dipstick handle had been replaced with the handle from an old hunting knife; a few inches away, a faded can of Billy Beer serves to collect radiator overflow.

Some .44 magnum shell casings capped each of the tire valve stems, and a wiper resembling a straight razor sat tucked up against the top of a near slit of a windshield.

“I just wonder how much we’ve missed,” Rice said, chuckling as he wandered away.

A fundraiser for the group’s charitable efforts, the Bend Elks have hosted a classic car show every summer for the last five or six years, said club officer Edwin Waggoner. Saturday’s event drew a few dozen cars mostly dating from the mid-1960s and earlier to the Elks Lodge on Boyd Acres Road, along with a steady stream of curious onlookers.

Alan Gustafson, of Bend, bought his 1940 Ford pickup at a Portland swap meet 35 years ago, a purchase he described as a “midlife-crisis” move coinciding with his 40th birthday. Gustafson recalled his parents had doubts about his buying the truck, but by chance, his brother soon bought an Austin-Healy, and by comparison, his truck looked like a practical vehicle.

“In fact, I used to drive it to work all the time,” he said. “After I retired, I pulled it all apart, but never got around to painting it.”

The original paint has faded to a dull, brownish orange, but the original engine and original transmission are still running strong, Gustafson said. While he’s thought about how nice the truck could look with fresh paint, Gustafson said he may never do it.

“A paint job’s really expensive these days, and then, you get a little nick in it, and it’ll ruin your day, wouldn’t it?” he said.

On the other end of the spectrum, Gil Schmidt’s 1965 Shelby Cobra doesn’t have a single original part on it — though indistinguishable from the rare sports car at a distance, Schmidt’s vehicle is a replica, built by a company in South Africa. The company battled car designer Carrol Shelby in court for years, Schmidt said, but eventually won his endorsement.

Schmidt, from Bend, said he often meets people who mistake his car for the original, but serious car enthusiasts generally recognize it as a replica. Only a limited number of Cobras were made, he said, and with an average value of $1.25 million to $1.5 million, “I just don’t have that kind of money.”

“Very, very seldom will you see an original Cobra, they’re just worth too much money to drive them,” he said.

Central Oregon’s biggest car show, the Flashback Cruz, is just under a month away. The annual show, organized by the Central Oregon Classic Chevy Club and scheduled this year for Aug. 2-4, traditionally features hundreds of vintage vehicles displayed at Drake Park.