Show cars stand out at Shades of the Past

Jul 29, 2023

Jun 3, 2023

A steady stream of visitors checked out Al Schoffelman's custom-built wooden pickup truck at the Shades of the Past car show on Saturday. Schoffelman said he built the truck using the frame of a 1979 Econoline van.

MARSHALL — The lot behind the Marshall Runnings was full of eye-catching vehicles on Saturday, as people came to check out the Shades of the Past car show. But even among the wide variety of show entries, there was one that stood out as unique – a pickup truck built almost entirely of wood.

Small groups of people kept pausing by the truck, and talking with creator Al Schoffelman.

"How long did this take to make?" one person asked.

"Nine winters," Schoffelman said.

"Just nine?" another visitor joked.

"And two long weekends. It was about 3,000 hours," Schoffelman replied.

Schoffelman, a resident of Tea, S.D., said he wanted to build the wooden truck because it was something he had never seen before. Schoffelman said he started out with the frame, engine and transmission from a 1979 Ford Econoline van that used to belong to a family member. "So, it's sentimental to me," he said.

Schoffelman built body of the pickup, the seats, and even details like the Ford logo on the tailgate, from wood.

"I just wanted something different," he said.

Whether the vehicles were new, restored, or custom-built, participants in the Shades of the Past show enjoyed getting to talk with visitors about their cars. Austin Hasert of Brandon, S.D., said one of his favorite things about coming to the show was "Meeting different people." Hasert had brought his father's Corvette to display on Saturday, and he said his grandfather also had a vehicle in the show.

Omar Arizmendi said there were two kinds of people who usually wanted to talk about his entry in the show: "Kids and car guys." It wasn't hard to see why. Arizmendi was at Shades of the Past with a P10 step van ice cream truck.

"Me and my son, we have a small snow cone business" in the Willmar area, he said. They bought the ice cream truck in 2019, after looking for one for a long time.

"It catches attention," Arizmendi said of the truck.

Steve Fredrickson, who was at the show with his 1955 Ford pickup, said one of the fun parts of being at Shades of the Past was getting to reminisce with visitors about classic cars.

"Someone always comes by and says, ‘I had one of these growing up,'" he said.

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