What: Eighth-annual downtown Camas Car Show and Rock N Roll Night. A classic and specialty car show with live music, food vendors, face-painting, raffles and prizes.
Where: Northeast Sixth Avenue and Adams Street, downtown Camas.
When: 5 to 9 p.m. today.
Cost: $20 to participate in the car show, free for the public to attend. Donation of two food items for the Camas-Washougal Interfaith Treasure House encouraged. All proceeds go to the charity.
Information: ?www.downtowncamas.com.
When Mary Jane Peden learned that her husband, Bill Peden, had a 1951 Allard K-2 stored in boxes as part of a long-planned project, she knew what she had to do.
A long-time hobby restorer who rebuilt an airplane with her previous husband, she decided to help him get the wheels rolling.
What: Eighth-annual downtown Camas Car Show and Rock N Roll Night. A classic and specialty car show with live music, food vendors, face-painting, raffles and prizes.
Where: Northeast Sixth Avenue and Adams Street, downtown Camas.
When: 5 to 9 p.m. today.
Cost: $20 to participate in the car show, free for the public to attend. Donation of two food items for the Camas-Washougal Interfaith Treasure House encouraged. All proceeds go to the charity.
Information: ?www.downtowncamas.com.
“We’ve been married for 11 years, and it was a project he’d had sitting around for about seven years,” Peden said. “I saw it and I just knew we had to finish it.”
Picking a color for the unique roadster was almost a marital test, though.
“He asked me what color I wanted, and I was afraid to say, so I asked him what he wanted,” she said. “He’s a conservative Air Force Colonel. So he made some (drab color) suggestions, and I just groaned. He said, ‘Well, what do you want?’ And finally, I said ‘sunflower yellow.'”
After wincing, he reluctantly agreed. But since then he’s learned to love the color, she said.
The pair finished building the roadster about five years ago and have been showing it around the Clark County car scene ever since.
This year, it will make its season debut at the downtown Camas Car Show and Rock N Roll Night on July 5.
It will be one of about 200 unusual cars featured at the show, in its eighth year, which typically draws a crowd of somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 visitors.
“The cars are just really cool,” said Brenda Schallberger, spokeswoman for the Downtown Camas Association event.
Some of the classic cars include a 1957 Chevy Bel Air, a 1969 Volkswagon Bug, a 1931 Ford Model A and a 1926 Ford Model T, she said.
The Allard, though, will be one of the show’s most rare vehicles.
“There were 150 of them made, and there are only 50 in the world,” Mary Jane Peden said. “Every one of them was hand made, and each one is unique. People just love it.”
The couple has a pair of khaki flight suits and goggles that they wear when showing the car, which looks “like an oversized Jaguar,” Mary Jane Peden said.
The Camas Car Show runs from 5 to 9 p.m. and includes music, a street fair, food vendors, face-painting, contests and prizes. The city shuts down 12 city blocks to vehicle traffic — other than the classic cars participating in the event.
It also includes 22 trophies for participating cars: a people’s choice award and 21 others awarded by local businesses. On-site registration for classic cars is $20, but space is limited, Schallberger said.
“We actually had to turn some away last year it was so popular,” Schallberger said, adding that they’ve added a few more spaces for cars this year. “We really hope everybody comes down to check it out. We have lots going on.”
Peden said she loves bringing the Allard to shows, and hopes people will feel free to come up and talk to her about it.
“We just take it whenever we can,” Mary Jane Peden said. “It’s so much fun to share with everybody. It’s such a beauty.”
