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Darryl Starbird, second from right, wraps up a tour of his rod and custom car museum with three of the new owners of the half-century old Wichita car show that bears his name. From left, Carl Fry, John Fry, Starbird, Dick Price. Not pictured are Tom and Tim Devlin, the other two Wichitans who will run the Starbird-Devlin Rod & Customs Charities Car Show as a charity event beginning in January.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Tim, left, and father Tom Devlin, round out the board of the Cars for Charities Co.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Darryl Starbird shining up 'Spaced Out,' a radical 1934 Buick bubbletop show car at his 54th annual car show earlier this year in Century II.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

The skylight in the west wall of Starbird's rod and custom car museum near Afton, Okla., blazes with color as the afternoon sun illuminates it. (Note: we flipped the image of the stained-glass sign for readability.)

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

The main rotunda of the Darryl Starbird Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame is filled with famous bubble-top show cars designed and built by Starbird.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Donna and Darryl Starbird at their museum near Afton, Okla. Together, the couple have produced more than 430 custom car shows. The only one Donna missed was due to the fact she was having a baby at the time.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Starbird and his visitors admire the `Marvel Machine,' a 1972 Pantera he customized in 1975. He sold the mid-engined car a few years later, but his wife, Donna, bought it back as a special 50th anniversary gift for him. Remarkably, the car was in the same condition as when he last saw it.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Starbird explains that the big blue Cadillac custom in his museum is actually a reproduction of the car originally built on Jesse James' `Monster Garage' television show. Starbird was on the build team for the original car and decided to create a duplicate for himself.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Starbird's collection includes many cars that were turned into model car kits, or vice versa, full-scale vehicles built to honor famous plastic kits, like the `Big T' roadster seen here.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle

Where it all began: Starbird created a diorama of his original Wichita custom shop, complete with an in-progress version of a 1947 Cadillac, his first custom car to be featured in a magazine, an issue of Rod & Custom in 1957. The first of his three Wichita area shops operated from 1954 to 1962.

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Bo Rader / The Wichita Eagle