Dave Shelton is celebrating 40 years of owning Dave’s Body Shop.
All these years, he has spent time doing body work on other people’s vehicles.
It was time to shift gears.
In November 2022, he traveled from his home in Brownstown to Chicago, Illinois, to pick up a 2005 Porsche Boxster.
When he brought it home, the exterior was silver with a black convertible top. He didn’t like that color, and the car wasn’t in the best shape.
“It was just dinged up. It wasn’t wrecked. It was just not very well taken care of,” he said.
Shelton disassembled the car, put a GT3 kit on it, redid the interior and painted the exterior torch red.
“It’s kind of out of character of me, the flashy,” he said, smiling. “It’s got about 300 hours in it. When you do one and you want it nice, you strip it down, and then you start blocking. It’s all handwork. You smooth out all your dents and then go with your primer and your glazes.”
The reward is seeing what the car looked like before and after.
“Everybody thinks it’s brand-new. It’s an ‘05 and under 100,000 miles. It’s a ball to drive,” he said, flashing another smile.
Shelton said he gets it out occasionally and drives it. One occasion was Friday night, as it was among the more than 240 vehicles entered in the eighth annual FOP Pre-Scoop Cruise-In and Car Show in downtown Seymour.
A variety of makes and models packed into the Robertson Feed Mill and Walnut Street parking lots and also were parked in the grass lot at Tipton and Walnut streets.
Proceeds from vehicle entries and the live and silent auctions will benefit the Fraternal Order of Police Donald M. Winn Lodge 108 Cops and Kids program, which pairs law enforcement with kids at Christmastime for a shopping trip at Walmart Supercenter in Seymour.
While he said he’s really not a car show kind of guy, Shelton thought it was time to change that Friday night because it benefited a good cause.
“I like the reason for it, and we do Scoop the Loop,” he said of the event that took place the next night in downtown Seymour, where people made laps in a variety of vehicles. “I’m getting to the point in my career that I’m going to slow down on customer work. I’ve always put myself on the back-burner. It’s time to get it done.”
Shelton said he’s working on 1969 and 1970 Mach 1’s for his grandkids, who are 15 and 11.
“They’ve already picked out colors,” he said. “The ‘69 is torn apart.”
The Porsche, however, is all Shelton’s.
“I don’t even get to drive it,” his wife, Belinda, said.
She does get to ride in it, though, and she has a hot rod Mercedes to drive, so she said she’s good.
Over in the Robertson Feed Mill Parking Lot, Douglas Bledsoe of Cortland had people admiring his 1928 Ford Model A.
He bought it about a year ago at an auction in Columbus.
“A guy passed away, and his kid sold it,” Bledsoe said.
When asked what drew him to it, he pointed at the red car with black fenders and said, “There you go. Just the way it looked. It was pretty much like this.”
Fortunately, the previous owners took good care of it, and it still had the original body and fenders.
“It just drives so good. It drives like a new car and looks like an old one,” Bledsoe said.
He said he mainly drives the car on weekends, and he has a few other classic cars. The Model A is not the oldest one of the bunch.
Bledsoe also took the car to Cars and Guitars in downtown Seymour in June, and he said he gets a lot of questions about it. He enjoys every moment he gets to talk about the classic car.
The fact that entering his car in Friday night’s show was helping support a good cause made it even better.
“Kids need all the help they can get,” he said, “and it’s great that they do that.”