Automobilia founder remembered as someone who ‘kept cruising alive in Wichita’

The man who was known for bringing together more than 100,000 Wichitans every summer to look at more than 1,000 cars, listen to music and dine under the stars has died.

Gary Carpenter, who founded downtown’s Automobilia car shop in 1982 and the Automobilia Moonlight Car Show & Street Party in 1995, died Monday at age 76.

“He had great vision,” said Tom Devlin, who has the Cars for Charities Rod & Custom Car Show.

“The location, how he did it, how he got the food trucks there. I mean, he made a wonderful event out of it other than just a car show, which is why I think it attracted everybody.”

The Neodesha native came to Wichita with the National Guard, attended Wichita State University and then worked in a number of capacities at Townsend Welding Equipment Co. for 32 years.

While still at TWECO, Carpenter opened Automobilia.

“He started Automobilia because . . . he knew that men were tired of getting shirts and underwear and socks for Christmas,” said his wife, Lorita Carpenter, also a Neodesha native.

She knew of his love of cars from the beginning of their relationship.

“When we got married, he had three already, and he was 21.”

She said he liked all cars.

“He was not a Ford or a Chevy man. I used to tell people he never met a car he didn’t like.”

Devlin and his children used to shop at Automobilia through the years.

“I couldn’t tell you how many times a year we would go into his store to check things out,” said Tim Devlin of Devlin Rod and Customs. “It was just a staple of downtown with the signs in the front window.”

He said he enjoyed the car show, too.

“It captured the entire downtown. It kept cruising alive in Wichita, and that was really cool,” Tim Devlin said.

“It’s just sad that we’re seeing a generation of car guys disappear. . . . He was just one of those pillars.”

Longtime Wichita Eagle automotive writer Mike Berry knew Carpenter since the 1980s.

“Gary was just a wonderful guy to talk to. He didn’t know a stranger.”

Even if you didn’t buy anything at his store, Berry said if you stopped by, “You’d end up talking to him for half an hour.”

He remembers Carpenter telling of a black Lincoln pulling up to his shop several years ago.

Berry said Carpenter told him a man got out of the car, came into the shop, and, “Gary said, ‘You look like Neil Young,’ and it was Neil Young. They just visited about cars. Gary didn’t make any big deal out of it.”

There was “nothing fancy about him,” Berry said of Carpenter.

“He ran the store like it was a business, but it was more of a hobby. He loved everything that he sold, from $1,000 antique gas pumps to $20 model kits.”

Amazing growth

In 1995, Carpenter decided he’d like to throw a customer appreciation party. He intended the Automobilia car show to be a one-year event.

Lorita Carpenter said they hoped for 50 cars to show.

“And I think the count was more like 250.”

There was one band and some Jet Bar-B-Q in the parking lot, but a tradition was born.

“It grew, oh, just amazingly,” Berry said. “And he did all the work. He covered every detail.”

Before each Automobilia, Berry said, Carpenter “would get really stressed, and you’d think he was going to call it quits at some point.”

Then, he said, “You’d see him during the show, and he’d be going a hundred miles an hour and loving every minute of it.”

Lorita Carpenter said it could be overwhelming, and people would ask her if they were going to throw the party again.

“I would say, ‘No.’ It never worked out that way.”

She credits their volunteers, whom her husband dubbed the Automobilia Goodguys.

In 2017, Carpenter sold the show to Joshua Blick.

“He was a huge supporter of classic cars and our car community,” Blick said. “He pretty much laid the groundwork and pretty much rallied the troops and made the community what it is.”

The best car at the Automobilia show already is awarded the Goodguy’s Pick in Carpenter’s honor, and he always had the Gary’s Pick, too, for his favorite car.

“It will be a loss for our community, but we’ll definitely be able to remember him over the years with Automobilia,” Blick said.

Carpenter, who closed his Automobilia store in 2019, is survived by his wife; two daughters, Amy Carpenter and Sheree Prosser; and two grandsons and three granddaughters.

Funeral services are pending.

The Carpenters had been married for 55 years.

The understanding Lorita Carpenter still has the inside of a ’57 Ford convertible in her basement — a restoration project her husband was not able to finish.

“It actually went really fast,” she said of their time together. “It was amazing.”