If not for the job he held 40 years ago in high school, it’s entirely possible Jay Marsh would have had no reason to be at the Flashback Cruz car show Saturday at Drake Park.

“I bought a ’55 Chevy after watching ‘American Graffiti’ 34 times,” Marsh said. “I worked in a movie theater, though — I’d be in there watching it before my shift.”

Since then, Marsh, 55, of Bend, has owned a similar car more often than not. Saturday, he sat in the shade alongside his current 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air among hundreds of pre-1979 cars.

This year marks the 30th year of the show hosted by the Central Oregon Classic Chevy Club, meaning it has been around nearly twice as long as one of Saturday’s youngest exhibitors, 16-year-old Patrick Allison.

Patrick spent a few years eyeing the car that would eventually be his, parked in a neighbor’s driveway just down the street from his home in Burns.

“There was dust covering it so much, I didn’t know if it was a Trans-Am or a Camaro,” he said.

Patrick eventually knocked on his neighbor’s door and learned it was in fact a Camaro, a 1976 Rally Sport. Though not officially for sale at the time, the car was available, it turned out. Patrick’s neighbor’s daughter had been driving it, but she’d lost her license when she was caught at the wheel of the Camaro going over 100 mph.

With help from family and friends, he’s fixed up the engine and other mechanical elements of the Camaro. His first go at cosmetic improvements was a half-success — the yellow on the doors doesn’t quite match the yellow on the car’s back end — but Patrick said he’s content to leave it that way until he’s proven himself a competent driver.

“I knew if I got a nice paint job, I’d never be able to forgive myself if I dinged it,” he said.

The trunk and the wheels on Jarno Ojala’s car bear the familiar four circles symbol used today by Audi, but the car is technically a DKW, a German brand that bought the Audi company in the 1930s but didn’t use the name for more than 25 years.

Ojala, 38, of Bend, said he was initially a bit hesitant to show his car at the Flashback Cruz, where it was one of only a handful of non-American cars on display. Nonetheless, he said he got a warm reception from other vintage car owners and attendees Saturday, far more so than last year when he took his car to a show populated with far more expensive and exotic vehicles.

“I was parked next to this $800,000 Mercedes Gullwing, he’d paid $800,000 for it a month ago,” Ojala said. “Ten people looked at that, and a thousand people looked at this, and he was literally pissed.”

Brice McMorris, of Bend, showed what was unquestionably the oddest vehicle on display Saturday, his homebuilt “Cadishack” camper.

Consisting of a tiny cabin with cedar siding sandwiched between a 1959 Chevrolet Apache flatbed and the top half of a 1965 Cadillac, the Cadishack also includes a wood stove mounted to the front bumper, and a pair of rear tailgate porch swings made from old chairlifts from Hoodoo.

McMorris, 43, said he’s taken the rig to Burning Man for each of the last 10 years, and on many camping trips in the Cascades.

The creation of the Cadishack was more of a cleanup effort than anything else, McMorris said.

“I just had all this stuff laying around in my yard, and decided to weld it all together,” he said. “That’s kind of the whole story.”

Though the car show at Drake Park ended Saturday, many of the car owners will be getting together this morning for a drive to Mount Bachelor.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387,

shammers@bendbulletin.com