ARLINGTON — While overcast skies put a slight damper on this year’s attendance, the 13th annual Show ‘N’ Shine car show on Saturday, June 9, still drew hundreds of automobiles and onlookers to Olympic Avenue to help support Arlington’s local businesses and community service organizations.

This year marked Marilyn Bullock’s sixth and final time chairing the event, and she estimated that this year’s total of about 220 antique, hot rod and muscle cars was down from the average of just under 300 that Show ‘N’ Shine has attracted in previous years. As such, the event’s fundraising total for this year was also slightly down from previous years, but it was still more than $3,000.

“That helps support our downtown merchants, as well as the Arlington Community Food Bank and cancer research,” Bullock said. “Our 50/50 raffle goes toward Arlington Kids Kloset. We also help fund events like Hometown Holidays and other activities that promote the downtown but don’t generate revenue to sustain themselves.”

As always, Show ‘N’ Shine also drew entrants from fairly far afield, not only within the state, but also from other states and even other countries.

Timothy Collett lives on Whidbey Island now, but he grew up in Hawaii and lived in Alaska with his father, retired Navy Command Master Chief Charles “Chuck” Collett. Although Charles passed on due to liver cancer two years ago, Timothy brought his father’s ashes to this year’s Show ‘N’ Shine, setting the urn atop the engine of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro that Timothy rebuilt in honor of his Vietnam veteran father.

“He owned 17 Camaros,” Timothy Collett said of his father. “He used to race stock cars in Hawaii. They called him ‘Da Wild Man’ and liked him even though he was a Haole. Me and my boys tore this car apart to turn it into a memorial to my dad, who served 30 years in the Navy. He was my hero.”

Timothy laughed as he recalled how Charles had heard about the 2010 concept Camaro and wanted to buy it for himself, but had joked that “the wife says I’ve got to get better first,” when both Charles and Timothy knew he wouldn’t survive.

Gary Sutherland has been an Arlington resident for 32 years, but his accent still gives away his origins in Australia, as do the chrome kangaroos on the 1945 war bus that he drove to the Show ‘N’ Shine. While Sutherland is camera-shy after a career of building cars that’s seen him rack up famous clients like Randy Johnson and the Beach Boys, he nonetheless enjoys showing off his work, including the military transport bus that he converted into a six-speed motorhome.

Dan Graham is happy to talk about his 1957 Ford F-1 pickup truck, but to get a lot of the standard questions out of the way, a local painter friend suggested printing its stats on a removable fender.

“I paid $1,000 to haul it away eight and a half years ago,” Graham said. “By the time it had been media-blasted, it looked like Swiss cheese. I was contemplating scrapping it.”

Instead, Graham embarked on what would become a labor of love, to the estimated tune of $200,000, which not only replaced two-thirds of the cab with new metal, but also saw the car customized with a chop-top, suicide doors, and a tilting back truck bed and front fiberglass fender, the latter designed by a boat-builder not to let water into the engine compartment.

“I grew up with muscle cars in Southern California,” Graham said. “I’ve been into hot rods all my life. I came up here 27 years ago, but now that I’ve raised my own family, I’m getting back into it.”

While other car owners were understandably hesitant to let spectators touch their vehicles, Arlington’s Terry Iverson was letting kids climb into the seats of his 1923 Ford T-Bucket, even though its gold gauges alone cost $600 and its two fat rear tires from Rosten Automotive ran him roughly $1,000.

“I’m going to have to replace this upholstery soon, and that’ll cost me another $2,500,” Iverson said as a group of children climbed out of the car after their families had taken photos. “It’s not about the money, though. When you let kids touch a toy like this, they see that there’s fun things worth working toward, and it helps keep them away from bad influences like drugs. The lesson for those kids is, if you work hard, you can have fun stuff too.”