Without roofs over their — well, roofs — classic vehicles tend to lose a lot of their classic status.
So Woodhaven Drive resident Bob Shooer is happy to have sufficient protection for his pair of vintage Chevrolet Corvettes.
“It’s unusual to have a garage this big in Mt. Lebanon,” he said. “I didn’t have these cars when I bought the house.”
That was in 2010, and with ample space for vehicles, Shooer purchased a pristine 1982 Collector Edition Corvette and began making the rounds at car cruises.
One of his favorites is right around the corner: the Mt. Lebanon Police Department Classic Car Show, the 28th annual edition of which is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., July 6, in the Central Business District on Washington Road, weather permitting.
The top 60 vehicles, as judged by members of the Tri River Car Club Council, will receive awards. Shooer’s 43-year-old Corvette —he also owns a 50th Anniversary Edition from 2003 — has racked up numerous Mt. Lebanon commendations over the years, as displayed prominently in his garage.
“I’ve loved Corvettes since I was a kid,” he said. “But I specifically like the older Corvettes, because they’re time capsules, basically.”
In particular, his older example serves as a reminder of the ’80s, his favorite decade, while marking the end of an era: Chevy’s 15th and final year for the third generation of the venerable sports car.
The Collector Edition, constituting 6,759 of the 25,407 ’Vettes built for 1982, features silver-beige metallic paint and matching interior, a 200-horsepower V8 engine, four-speed automatic overdrive transmission and a back hatch that lifts, a first at that point for Corvettes.
Speaking of firsts, a few Fords from their initial years of production garnered special recognition at Mt. Lebanon’s 2024 event. Heidelberg enthusiast Kelly “Mullet Man” Hohn’s 1948 F-1 pickup was named Best of Show, and Denny Covert of Ohio Township received the Chief’s Award for his 1964½ Mustang convertible.
“I normally don’t put it in for judging,” Covert said. “But there was so much interest, the guy next to me talked me into putting it in for judging. So I went back and filled out the papers late.”
This summer, Hohn plans to take another vehicle to Mt. Lebanon: a mammoth 1986 Chevrolet Suburban, representing one of the many restoration projects he undertakes in his expansive home garage.
His sport-utility vehicle should have plenty of company at one of the region’s premiere automotive events.
“The setting of it makes it very popular, the fact that we’re able to shut down Washington Road,” Cpl. Ty Kegarise, the primary organizer, said. “The businesses can remain open. People can kind of take in a little bit of everything.”
Proceeds from the show benefit the Mt. Lebanon Police Association, which helps to fund programs such as educational visits to schools, public safety camp, citizens police academy and, new this summer, a student police academy.
For folks who are interested in details, the vehicles’ owners generally enjoy providing them.
Shooer, for example, had just 23,250 miles on the odometer of his ’82 Corvette when he took it out of his garage for the spring. While most of the car’s features are original, he updated the tires with specially made ones that match what was there in the first place.
Under the hood is the 350-cubic-inch motor that came with the car.
“What makes this engine unique, and not necessarily in a great way, is what they call Cross-Fire injection. It’s two throttle bodies. There’s one injector for each bank of cylinders, and it’s really hard to keep it tuned properly,” Shooer said. “They only did this engine in ’82 and ’84. There was no Corvette in 1983.”
Providing major assistance in keeping his ’Vettes in top shape is retired mechanic Bert Maolini of Bethel Park.
“He has kept a couple of his clients, thank God,” Shooer said. “You can’t just drive into a Corvette dealership and expect the tech there to know what happened 43 years ago. They’re all trained on the current technology, and this is very obsolete, old technology.”
It’s even older for Covert’s Mustang, which made its debut during the spring of his senior year of high school.
“I really liked the looks of it when it came out, and I was really impressed with what Ford did,” he recalled, having seen one on the showroom floor of a small dealership in his native Forest County.
Around that time, he embarked on a senior trip prior to his 1964 high school graduation, and as the students’ bus returned from Washington, D.C., he noticed what turned out to be the same Mustang in the school parking lot.
“I got off, and that car pulled up to me,” he recalled. “And my dad said, ‘Hop in!’ I was really surprised.”
He and his then-girlfriend, Jane, enjoyed going on dates in the Ford, and when they got married, they talked about getting their own someday. Fast-forward to 2018, and they made it happen through a Florida consignment warehouse that was selling a first-edition Mustang on behalf of an avid car collector.
“Originally, this car was black, inside and out,” Covert said. “And he paid a person to make it red inside and out, because he wanted a red convertible.”
For a further modification, the collector replaced the stock six-cylinder engine with a 289-cubic-inch V8.
Last year marked Covert’s first visit to the Mt. Lebanon show.
“I think it was the only older Mustang there,” he said, “and the police chief came and thanked me for bringing it.”
Hohn also made his initial foray to the Washington Road event in 2024, taking a pickup that hails from the initial batch of Ford’s “F” series of trucks. He bought the F-1 for $100 in 1986, the year he graduated from Chartiers Valley High School, from his motoring mentor, the late Marcel “Boomer” Rouviere of Scott Township.
Eventually, Hohn transformed the ’48 by converting it to four-wheel drive and installing a lift kit to perch it atop massive Interco Super Swamper tires.
“That really made it an eye-catcher,” he said, and the pickup’s six-speaker sound system tends to catch the ear. “When we’re at the car show, we’re partyin’.”
He took a similar approach to his Suburban. The onetime UPMC courtesy vehicle looks more like a monster truck these days, in keeping with the propensity of Hohn — he proudly maintains a short-on-top, long-in-back hair style — for what he refers to as “Mulletizing” his projects.
In addition to the F-1 and Suburban, his “Mullet Garage” contains two more Fords: a 1951 Tudor coupe, another car that once belonged to Rouviere, and 1953 pickup fitted with a V8 engine.
This is Kegarise’s second year organizing the event, and he credited members of the Rotary Club of Dormont-Mt. Lebanon-Castle Shannon with getting him off to a good start in 2024.
“They volunteer their time. They’re the ones who run our registration tents and help with the collection of all the money,” he said. “We couldn’t do the event without them. So we’re always super-thankful for their help.”
And he thanks the guys and gals who bring their antique, classic and/or souped-up vehicles to Mt. Lebanon:
“The people who participate in it are definitely the people who make the event the success that it is.”
The 28th annual Mt. Lebanon Police Department Classic Car Show is free to the public. Registration for vehicles is from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in front of Washington Elementary School.