Casper the Friendly Ghost glides in for car show
Staff writer
Casper the Ghost made an appearance Saturday at the county lake.
He even drove his own souped-up 1937 Ford.
Friends Fatso, Stinky, and Stretch came along to keep him company.
His car, owned by Wichita resident Jim Benton, is a shiny purple-and-white sedan with the ghost friends painted on fenders and a movie about Casper playing on a screen in the trunk.
Benton said he wanted the car to appeal to both children and adults. Spectators who walked over to check it out at Saturday’s car show at the lake seemed to find it appealing.
Benton handed out commemorative cards to children.
He bought the car 20 years ago and had artists complete the ghost images in six months.
He placed first in the annual car show, besting 27 other vehicles.
Benton has a large assortment of trophies from other car shows across the state, but this was the first time he had shown his car at the lake, even though he and his wife have a trailer there.
The car runs on regular unleaded gasoline even though it had no special work done to convert it from leaded to unleaded.
A motley assortment of muscle cars, a Firebird, Mustangs, pickups, motorcycles, and even a lawn tractor showed up for the car show.
Other winners were Hank Guetterman, best in class motorcycle for his 1971 MiniTrail, and Mitch Guetterman, best in class truck for his GMC Jimmy.