OGUNQUIT — Close your eyes and picture those endless 1960s summer days, surfing, and those cool, cool cars nearly everyone calls woodies. Think the Beach Boys music and their album covers — sporting acres of sandy beach, surfboards, and classic automobiles — vintage vehicles with distinctive and beautifully executed wood doors, wood panels or wood trim.

L. F. “Sonny” Perkins, retired from his job as vice president of an oil and gas company, was a surfer on Long Sands Beach in York in those days.

“I was the only surfer on the beach,” he recalled. He competed internationally.

The surfing community adopted the woodies as their own, so so speak.

“They were the cars available on the west coast to the surfing crowd,” he said, explaining that used woodies were cheap at the time.

Perkins too liked the look of the distinctive-looking cars, and vowed that someday, he’d have one.

“I retired 10 years ago. (Buying a) woodie was the first thing on my bucket list,” he said on Monday.

He found his now pristine six-seater black 1940 Ford Deluxe with wood doors and a wood interior crafted of tiger maple, birds’ eye maple and birch, eight years ago. He estimates his car is one of about 150 of its kind in the United States.

“I drove all over the country looking for a car,” said Perkins. “I found it in Mexico City. It was rebuilt in Chihuahua, (brought) to El Paso, Texas and I put on an 18-wheeler and brought it to Maine.”

The paint shines. The wood gleams. It is, in a word, a beaut.

He’ll be displaying the flat head eight-cylinder automobile on Saturday when the Historical Society of Wells and Ogunquit presents “Woodies in the Cove,” a car show that culminates in a parade from the show location at 974 U.S. Route 1 in Wells down to Perkins Cove in Ogunquit.

The event is a premiere fundraiser for the historical society. The show is free, but, Perkins noted that donations are graciously accepted.

Perkins, a director of the historical society, chairman of the car show and president of the Yankee Wood Chapter of the National Woodie Club, said he expects a good showing — 50 plus woodies, some from as far away as Virginia.

So what’s the woodie mystique?

Well, it is the craftsmanship, the surfing tie-in, and more. American vehicles have sported wood components since the horseless carriage first made its debut — the carriages themselves were made of wood.

They still are, at the Richard A. Currier Horseless Carriage Company in Ogunquit, where retired homebuilder and cabinet maker David Currier, who named the company for his father, puts his woodworking skills and love of vintage autos together to craft new bodies for the Ford Model T and other vintage autos.

He has customers from all over the country, and, he said, this retirement job has him working “eight days a week.” He has a two-year backlog.

“I grew up with it,” Currier said of his penchant for old cars. “My earliest memory is driving with my dad in his Model T.”

Also a collector, Currier recently acquired a 1919 Model T Ford Depot Hack because he liked it. From northern Maine, the original wooden body is in fine condition. He’s working on getting the electrical system in shape and hopes to bring it to the show.

“It’s such a beauty,” he said of the car.

Another woodie at the event is expected to be a 1951 Buick Country Squire presented to Evelyn Chamberlain by her family four years ago.

The car was a surprise.

“My wife was having some medical issues and we thought we’d cheer her up,” said her husband Douglas Chamberlain. “We looked across the country for this exact car and found it in Laguna Beach, California.”

They brought it home to Cape Neddick.

“It was in good shape, but we restored it — did some cosmetic things, installed white wall radial tires,” he said. Child safety seats were installed so Evelyn can take the grandchildren for a spin.

The Chamberlains, like Perkins, came to admire woodie cars while surfing.

“We grew up in York during the summers where the culture was surfing,” said Doug Chamberlain. “We love that culture and Evelyn always wanted to have a woodie of her own.”

It took “Best in Show” in the Woodies in the Cove show in 2017.

“We were thrilled, and it was so much fun chatting with people,” said Evelyn Chamberlain, recalling the stories people would tell about their own experiences with woodie automobiles.

The 7th annual Woodies in the Cove Car Show is 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 974 Post Road, U.S. Route 1, in Wells. The parade to Perkins Cove begins at 2 p.m.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.

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