McPherson College is the school Luke Chennell works with. In this episode, it’s important because it runs an auto restoration program where students learn practical car-repair skills.
Concept
frame famous bradley gt monger
They mention a “Bradley GT” and “Monger” in connection with Luke’s restoration work. That usually means there’s a specific project car or build that students learn from and talk about by name.
“After Cars” sounds like a student/enthusiast event connected to the restoration program. It’s a chance for people to meet, talk about cars, and show what they’re working on.
Concept
open access to a golf cart
They joke about giving students open access to a golf cart. The underlying idea is that having a simple, inexpensive vehicle to work on can help students practice real car skills.
Concept
auto journalist homework every night
They’re talking about how writing about cars takes constant effort, like homework. It’s a reminder that car media isn’t just casual—people have to keep learning and working.
An auto restoration program is a school course where students learn how to fix up old cars. They practice real repair work—like taking parts apart, rebuilding systems, and making the car look and run right again.
“Restoration of vintage cars” refers to preserving and rebuilding older vehicles to an authentic or high-quality standard. The guest highlights that the curriculum covers multiple disciplines—mechanical work, body/metalwork, upholstery, and even automotive history—so students can tackle whole-car projects.
They’re describing the school’s annual car show where students show off the cars they’ve restored. It started small and has grown a lot, with hundreds of cars showing up.
Concept
leak some oil
They joked about “leaking some oil” to make the event feel more like a real car shop. It’s a playful nod to the messy, hands-on world of restoring old cars.
A concept car is like a “preview” of what a company might build next. It’s usually a special prototype meant to show off new ideas, not something you’d normally buy at a dealership.
They’re talking about a Camaro, which is a famous American muscle car. The exact version is unclear here, but it’s being used to show there’s something for different kinds of car fans.
Concept
reliable carrier
A “reliable carrier” here refers to the transport setup used to move valuable cars safely to the event and into the shop. For rare classics and exotics, logistics and secure transport are a big part of protecting the car’s condition.
This is a very old, very rare Lamborghini from the 1960s. It’s the kind of car collectors and enthusiasts get excited about because it’s a real piece of the brand’s history.
The Porsche 550 Spyder is an older Porsche sports car that was built to feel like a race car. It’s known for being very light and designed for fast driving. The podcast brings it up as a notable European performance car with a strong racing background.
The “concourse circuit” is the series of big car shows where cars are displayed like art and sometimes judged. It’s where collectors and restorers go to show their work.
They mention the McPherson College auto restoration technology program, which is an education track focused on restoring vehicles to a high standard. Programs like this typically teach disassembly, fabrication, bodywork, mechanical restoration, and documentation for judging-quality builds.
This is an annual event where students show off restored cars, and there’s also a bigger “car festival” vibe. It’s a chance to see student projects and learn how restoration is done.
Concept
con stock wisconsin
They mention where the guest is from. It’s mostly background information about who the speakers are.
“Path to Pebble” refers to a competitive restoration/selection pathway that helps teams and students earn recognition and potentially progress toward Pebble Beach–level concours exposure. It’s a way for restorers to demonstrate craftsmanship, documentation, and presentation quality.
This is like a warm-up event before the main car show. Instead of judging, people cruise around and you can walk around downtown to look at cars in a more relaxed way.
This is a car show tied to a school program where students restore cars. They bring the cars they’ve been working on so people can see what they learned and how the cars turned out.
Register day-of means you can show up and sign up the same day of the event. It helps people who didn’t plan ahead, but the organizers still need to manage the line and parking.
“Feature cars” are the standout vehicles highlighted at a show, usually selected for their quality, history, or craftsmanship. They often draw more attention and help set the tone for the event.
The hosts discuss the operational side of organizing a car show, including time spent throughout the year and the importance of checklists as the event approaches. This is more about event logistics than vehicle tech, but it’s a distinct segment topic.
Car shows split cars into groups so similar cars compete together. Here, they’re talking about categories based on the car’s age, which helps keep judging fair.
Concept
domestic (car show class)
“Domestic” is a way car shows group cars by where the brand is from—typically U.S. manufacturers—rather than by import brands. It helps organize the judging so similar cars compete.
“Hot rod, custom, and modified” is a catch-all class for cars that have been changed from stock—often for styling, performance, or both. The hosts note it isn’t broken out by age, which means very different builds can compete in the same class.
In car-show judging, “provenance” generally refers to documented history—like ownership, originality, and whether the car is as-built or has known background. The segment suggests that the hot rod/custom/modified class doesn’t emphasize provenance the way more stock-focused classes might.
They explain how judges are selected—coming from a judging committee—and that the committee participates in other local shows before judging their own. This helps listeners understand how judging experience is built.
The Porsche 944 is an older Porsche sports car. People like it because it feels very “talkative,” meaning the car gives you hints about grip and handling before you lose it.
Spinning out means the tires lose grip and the car starts rotating instead of going straight. It usually happens when you turn or accelerate harder than the road can handle.
A “communicative” car is one that tells you what it’s doing—like when the tires are losing grip. That helps you react sooner instead of being surprised.
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quiet numbskulls on Broadcast and hey all you dear heads and car fiends welcome to
driven radio show your weekly automotive happy hour i am brett hatfield here with my co-host
and engineer extraordinaire mr mark growth that's me and our wonderfully repeat-offending
guest luke chennell of macpherson college here i am and we are coming to you from the
interwebs because none of us is where the other two are yeah we're all in a remote locations
spread across the united states i like it that way yeah the wonders of satellite technology
as i said our special guest this week is luke chennell of macpherson college luke is now a
full fledged professor in the person college auto restoration program and he's a frame famous
bradley gt monger luke also hosts the legendary after cars that's the college auto restoration
students uh show barbecue at which sweaty semi sober auto journalists can be found cooking
sausages right luke welcome back to driven radio thanks for having me in the pantheon of bad ideas
promoting me is like right on top i i don't know man i still think the idea of you having
open access to a golf cart that's that that one ranks up there pretty well too uh i did
want to congratulate you again great job on all your hard work and consistent effort over the years
to finally become a full professor good on you yeah one of the students today asked me so what
does that actually mean and i said well here's the thing in the academy like you do the same
job forever until you die and so we just make up a bunch of fancy titles so that it sounds that we
sound more important than we really are well you know that kind of runs parallel to something
that i've found out which is uh being an auto journalist is the same as being any other kind
of writer it means you have homework every night for the rest of your life indeed indeed yeah i'm in
the 37th grade now or something i've lost count freelance not free time i i think all three of us
share that thanks so um for those who are uninitiated can you tell us a little bit about the restoration
program and its significance absolutely uh so the restoration program was started back in 1976
note the date uh by a guy well by a group of people at the college uh funded by a guy named
gains uh smoky belu smoky was quite a character made a bunch of money in oil and gas and he loved
old cars and particularly rolls roices so he gave the college his collection of cars
somewhere around 80 and they sold those off to fund the creation of the auto restoration program
and so now we are celebrating 50 years of auto restoration at mcpherson college
and that includes all the things that we've done over the years including multiple show winners
in various venues including public beach of course most famously recently uh sending out hundreds
hundreds of graduates into the field to restore cars at a very high level and also people who
do insurance stuff and write about cars and just generally contribute to the car world
so we're really proud of our legacy and and happy to be celebrating 50 years of it yeah
there is no other program like this anywhere in the country
absolutely not no we're the only bachelor's program really in the world uh to offer a
program in the restoration of vintage cars and so our curriculum covers uh any facet of the
automobile you can imagine uh from everything of course mechanical and technical upholstery sheet
metal uh drivetrain chassis engines uh and then we also do a decent amount of history uh you know
overlap with art uh our students often go on and write about cars uh in different ways so yeah we
do it all here it's what is what makes the annual college auto restoration students uh show so
important um so the car show um so it's the college auto restoration restoration students
show as you point out uh it was dreamed up by myself and some other I take a little bit of
credit it was actually a bunch of classmates of mine back in the year 2000 as a way to basically
end the year kind of have a you know end of year event uh on campus uh and so we at the time they
the college was doing some renovation and had just seeded some brand new grass
so we looked out at all that grass and we said man we could leak some oil on that
so so we uh put together a flyer and you know some radio spots and a bunch of stuff
we had our first show with about 50 cars and since then it's just grown and grown and grown
um so now it's to the point where we get a draw of over 500 cars uh but probably what's
more notable than the number is really the kind of breadth and quality and interesting stuff that
shows up uh from all over uh through our alumni connections uh in our advisory board connections
people bring out I mean the good stuff so we've had a relationship uh with general motors now for
several years uh they typically bring at least three concept cars uh including over the years
the Y job uh Mako Shark um and just uh Banshee just any number of really really significant
historically significant cars uh and then collections bring out you know the heavy iron
Duesenbergs and uh we had a Bugatti last year uh just anything and everything and then and then
but wait there's more uh the students have all kinds of rattle trap cars that they push and you know
coax shall we say onto the show field uh so you get to go around uh walk on our beautiful
campus while the jazz band plays and look at Russ Bucket Camaro's while you can also look at a
Duesenberg so there's just something for everybody um it's just it's just a remarkable event it does
clear out the sheds pretty well from across the street uh it's the one time you can walk through
the sheds and not really touch anything because all the cars have been shoved over onto the
show field uh also when we're talking about cool stuff that showed up don't forget that
59 Stingray racer that was there last year i spent more time pestering the hell out of those guys
so that i could get pictures taken with my 65 Stingray and and i did i did pet took a whole
bunch of pictures yeah we were fortunate enough i mean it's just i can go on and on and on um but
you know we were fortunate enough a few years ago to have uh the car that won america's most
embarrassed sheet metal uh because it was built by uh some of our graduates so yeah there's just
everything you'll just there will be something that will knock your socks off uh kind of no
matter what you're into from a car standpoint who are some of the more notable attendees at the show
um so aside from obviously GM heritage center who sends great stuff absolutely so let me tease
a few uh of these things um so one of the cars that came in the other day uh came in on a reliable
carrier and everybody kind of looked around when i asked well who's going to move it into the shop
and nobody wanted to do it to do it so i did uh and so i hopped in uh right in chassis class of
68 lamborghini 400 gt the the yeah tough gig uh so that car is the very last one that was imported
to the united states um in kind of other european iron we have a 55 uh Porsche 550 spider um in kind
of more domestic iron uh we've got a 1948 Tucker uh that's coming from the midwest dream car collection
oh okay great i can play a board suit something yay yeah uh then the peterson museum uh is bringing
out one of the old yellows uh famous uh race car pieced together from various bits really really
i'm excited for that uh 1908 american underslung uh really important brass car uh we got a 27
nizata fresheny i assumed with some elaborate coach work um and then i won't i won't give away
the GM cars but there will be three GM cars uh focused this year as Cadillac so yeah i i heard
a little about that all righty so the show is an absolute standout in the car world you don't
especially for a little central kansas town that what's macpherson now about 13,000 14,000
1314,000 people and we estimate the show draws somewhere between four to six thousand people
the town well there's not a there's not a hotel room left ask mark that is correct
i was smart i got my hotel room six months ago i made my decision pretty late in the game and it's
like oh okay let's uh let's see if this place uh has a room that hasn't burnt down yet and i'll
just take that one so i'm good to go in lindsborg that's the upside yeah i will be in town so okay
that's good plus which is which is good if he gets there early we're gonna have to make him
help us with the barbecue setup hell yeah hell yeah i mean i mean all right so the students who
put on the show this year are damn busy and we couldn't shake them free for an interview this
year so we're gonna go ahead and run the interview from last year um the cars change but the show
doesn't yeah the show continues to be the paragon of excellence every year you can't
believe the show is that good uh you know you'd be surprised if you found a show that good in
a city of a million or two much less a town of 13 uh thousand the dates for the show this year
are may 1st for the drive-in show downtown which is a lot of fun if you got a chance to attend
you absolutely should and then may 2nd for the college auto restoration student show on campus
the campus address luke 1600 east euclid uh mcpherson kansas for more information you can go to
www.mcpherson.edu forward slash auto restoration all one word forward slash cars luke sorry i didn't
mean to interrupt you what were you gonna say sir oh most most important thing um you know i
have made the concourse circuit and usually tickets started somewhere between 100 to 300
dollars for these events oh yeah and you can come to this show for free there is no charge to get in
so 100 mark folks there are food trucks there is music there's entertainment and there are more
fantastic cars there than you will see at most major shows plus gm heritage center and all the
other historically significant things that will be there make sure you show you show up uh saturday
may 2nd one fantastic show and here's the interview it's the mcpherson kids they're back
they're back our special guests this week are devin roff who's a repeat offender and urney skin
of mcpherson college auto restoration technology program and co-chairs of the 25th annual college
auto restoration students or cars show and motoring festival uh it's my favorite weekend of the year
i can't wait uh devin is a senior from con stock wisconsin he's an amc specialist oh you poor sucker
amc specialist who is part of the path to pebble mercedes restoration team
urney skin is a junior from wainsborough pennsylvania studying restoration with an emphasis in
management this past summer urney interned with kkr in northern california working on
houston martins oh yeah james bonmobile very cool stuff devin and urney welcome to driven radio
hey thanks good to be back uh we're glad to have you back devin you repeat offender you
two years in a row how'd you manage that couldn't get enough had to come back
did you have to arm wrestle for it or did they just let you have it oh no i pretty much signed on
for a two-year deal when i do this oh cool okay so uh let's get to the first thing that happens
the pre-show show downtown on friday night tell us a little bit about that the mini show before
the real show is just a quick cruising to let kids like just drive out and you can walk down the
streets of downtown macpherson and just look at everything it's less it's more casual so it's
a little more fun it like kind of takes the edge off for the next day so he says casual but we fill
up three blocks with this deal so it's it's bigger than he makes it out to be well and there's
vendors down there selling burgers and hot dogs and stuff or you can go into any of the restaurants
that are on main mm-hmm all the restaurants uh actually most of them stay open especially for
this event because they know they get a lot of business that night so oh yeah oh yeah uh and
it's uh it's a good kind of a uh a taste of what you're going to get the next day
but we'll never ever top shon robinson showing up with his fire truck i love that he showed up
on this fire truck he pulled that uh mark he pulled his fire truck in front of luke's house
and put the ladder up on it and ped went to the top of the ladder and was taking pictures
of all the cars in luke's front yard from the top of the ladder that was cool nice i'd love it
if he could bring it back but shon lives in florida that's a long haul on an old fire truck man
so this is the 25th uh college auto restoration student car show 25 years show seems to get bigger
every year what time does registration begin what is the college's address where do people
register that would be uh on mcphersoncollege.edu okay um you can google them or mcpherson
college car show it'll come up okay it's it's that simple the address 1600 east euclid mcpherson
kansas if you register day of you register on the east side of the college campus there's a bunch
of arrows pointing to it pretty hard to miss it okay um how do you manage to attract the feature
cars that you bring to the show honestly at this point they kind of just fall out of the woodwork
for us um you just give an email at a random wednesday this is this is when you're supposed to
oh man we work so hard you should see what we go through a lot of them are alumni collect or
alumni's who are working for collections or museums or uh shops um technically the school
working hard enough to like teach kids brings those alumni's right back with some really really cool
stuff how many hours do you put into organizing the show and do all the restoration students work
on the show or is it uh a committee or a select few has it worked so for the most part we have
like uh ernie and i are it really paulson is the would be the faculty director of the show
and then i would be the chair and ernie is co-chair um and then from there that's pretty much our
student leadership team and then we have community committee heads that we appoint and they kind of
break it down from there and then everybody in the program is part of a committee if they want
their car on the show field they have to be part of the committee how long do you spend putting
the show together i don't know we probably spend from the beginning it gets more and more busy
throughout the year so the beginning of the year we met every every other week for an hour or two
hours and then you do some tasks between those meetings like ordering shirts or um getting
together with people to get roads closed off for certain events but then like up to this week it's
a lot like it's a lot of hours like probably two three a day of just making sure everything is
you're not really it may not be doing anything but you're just making sure everything's still on
track making sure you didn't forget anything it's a big one that's the more
i'm guessing checklists become really important as you get closer
how many entries are you expecting this year like the last three years i think we've hit
450 the whole time and it rained last year yeah it rained last year and we still had
425 i think or something or something real close that's including student cars as well what are
some of the categories people can enter we got a bunch of them we got uh we actually added a few
classes this 19 27 and earlier 28 to 44 45 to 54 55 to 64 65 to 72 73 to 89 um then we split off into
our uh 1990 to 2004 in the domestic why 2001 why are you do you do 10 year jumps in between but
suddenly 65 to 72 that seems like a really abbreviated period and then you go 73 to 89
that's the way it's been before i got here even okay there's a lot of muscle cars that come from
right around this area that kind of fit into those the the 60 the 55 to 64 and then 65 to 72
there's a lot of muscle cars and cars in in Kansas that come in that fit right in that area
okay um we have a hot rod custom and modified category is that broken out by age or is it just
altogether that's just all together so those um they wouldn't have like provenance the hot rod
custom and modified is just one one class so okay the categories are judged how are the judges
selected and what are their qualifications uh so our judges are on our judging committee
so one of our branches that come kind of goes off the car show um they do a couple shows actually
are ready around the area so we'll go to Inman the week before our car show and judge Inman's car
show they'll go to two or three others throughout the year and judge really anybody can be on
judging committee uh and we'll go through training to do like what to look for what you how you do
how to judge and just etiquette wise stuff okay very important question what are you going to
have for food and drinks what's going to be there oh um we had a really good there's a really good
cheeseburger truck that comes to the car show that's that's probably my favorite sold uh yeah
no i'm already there one of them change your mind otherwise there's usually a walking taco truck
yeah we got a bunch of local food trucks that come and park out by Templeton there and they serve
out of there so fantastic also uh will there be tours of Templeton this year yes yes fantastic
who's who's leading that any idea his name is Hunter Ormond yep tours of Templeton will be from
nine to one oh good get there early if folks if you have not toured the program there or been
through Templeton Hall you absolutely owe it to yourselves to do so make sure that you get there
early enough to take one of those tours and see all the cool stuff uh that they do in the program
cars that are waiting to have their turn and also some of the projects that are already finished
including the Mercedes from the path from path to pebble uh that was there last year be sure to
check out and i believe it's 1953 300 s convertible isn't it cabriolet yes okay absolutely make sure
you check that out and devin we heard about your dumb stuff last year so Ernie now you're in the
crosshairs dude uh he gets to carry the weight Ernie what's the dumbest thing you've ever done
in a car working or driving yes i'm the day i got my license uh i decided to take out i have a
Porsche 944 um that i rebuilt when i was before i got my license i guess uh and i took it out
and like the first day i did was like loop it out on a turn just i don't know i was pushing a little
too fast and didn't know how to like you know drive really and just spun out put it was put
into a pole thank goodness i did but that was i don't know probably one of the worst things i've done
so the red ball all over the car too and that's and oh well there it is that's all there's the
kicker right there you know it's funny i've driven several 944s i find them to be extraordinarily
communicative and they will tell you exactly what they're going to do long before they do it
the best drifting i've ever done was in a 944 what happened to you so like i said i mean it was day
it was day one of my license and it was like the first time i was in a car without my parents
and any supervision um and i just pushed it i still i mean it's not the car today and i
drives pretty well now but haven't done it since uh well you know you'll learn as you go uh i will
say this when i was 18 in my uncle's 944 i scared my aunt so bad she still won't ride in a car with
me today and uh that was that was taco bell that was almost 40 years ago so we've been speaking
with devon roff and ernie skin co-chairs of the macpherson college auto college auto restoration
students car show and motoring festival taking place on the macpherson college campus gentlemen
please tell us where we can find the college and information online and on social media you can
go to just the website and our instagram is just mcgott arresto if you look at macpherson college
car show it should be like the second option when you click and they can go in it'll show you
all the times everything is and how to register um macpherson dot edu devin and arnie thank you for
being with us we will see you next weekend on the macpherson college campus thank you thank you
all righty well thank you so much for spending time with driven radio we love what we do and we
wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our listeners you can find us online at driven
radio show dot com follow us on facebook twitter and instagram at driven radio show and on linked
in as driven radio show podcast if you have a story you would like to tell or someone you
would like us to interview please contact me at brett at driven radio show dot com that's
brett at driven radio show dot com i am brett hatfield for mark l groves yelp thank you for
listening and we'll see you next time here on driven radio
About this episode
Luke Chennell from McPherson College talks about the school’s vintage auto restoration program, which began in 1976 and is now celebrating 50 years. He shares how the annual student car show has grown to draw over 500 cars and an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people, with free admission. The show leadership covers registration logistics, judging committee structure, and typical entry counts, plus a humorous Porsche 944 mishap story from the first day of driving.
Brett and Mark chat with Luke Chennell about the upcoming McPherson College Auto Restoration program’s 50th anniversary, the significance of the program, the upcoming College Auto Restoration Students (C.A.R.S.) Show, and why it so amazing. All this and much more on this week’s Driven Radio Show!
