Charity car show to celebrate 60 years in Wichita

The Starbird-Devlin Rod & Customs Charities Car Show is cruising back to Wichita Jan. 20-22 at Century II.

Cars for Charities will celebrate the 60th anniversary of a Wichita tradition, benefiting The Arc of Sedgwick County and Starkey Inc.

Tim Devlin, president of Cars for Charities, said several hundred cars will be at the three-day event.

The “Magnificent 7” event will showcase the best cars being shown for the first time in Sedgwick County. The show will award $17,000 to owners of the seven winning vehicles in the competition, with finalists receiving $2,000 each and the winner receiving $5,000, according to the Starbird-Devlin website.

“Wichita has lots of local shows, but this gives people the opportunity to see cars from out of state or cars that they have never seen before,” Devlin said.

Devlin said that while all of the vendors are automobile-related, the show offers a free Kids Zone, a model car make-and-take, a model car competition and live entertainment from the band On Call, which is made up of local doctors.

This will be Cars for Charities’ sixth year producing the show, Devlin said.

“In five years we have raised over $558,000 for our charities – we were very thrilled for that – but we want that to be over 1 million and beyond,” he said.

Proceeds go to the two nonprofits, which serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We’ve got board members that have had long relationships with The Arc and Starkey,” Devlin said. “We went to car shows that supported these charities, so it was a natural progression. They work well together and there’s a lot of similarities and sharing between the two. Not a lot of charities work together.”

Other parts of the show aren’t open to the public but are important to the show itself, such as giving schools with vocational programs, Honor Flight members and veterans a chance to tour the show without thousands of other people, Devlin said.

“Wichita is a car community,” he said. “Ever since I can remember, going to the Starbird show was just something you did. Whether you were a car enthusiast or not, that was just part of the lexicon, something you did in the winter.”

Devlin said outside support from sponsors is what makes the show possible.

“What we do as a charitable organization, everybody that is involved, nobody is paid,” he said, “and we can’t do what we do without those sponsors. I would just ask the public to look at who our sponsors are, and go out and support them. They do a lot for us, and without them we can’t do what we do.”

Devlin said that whether people were at the first, fifth or 10th show, he would like them to come back or even just go to their Facebook page and tell the organization about their experiences.

“Everyone has a story,” he said. “There are a lot of great stories to be told about 60 years of the show.

“For anything to last 60 years, it’s amazing, let alone a rod and custom show in Wichita, Kansas.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Charity car show to celebrate 60 years in Wichita."