It harkens to a time of girls in poodle skirts, a pack of Luckies tucked into the sleeve of a white T-shirt, tubular neon lights reflecting off 18 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer, the rumble of lake pipes and the sound of squealing tires.

The lure of the road, hot cars and cool wheels will be celebrated Sunday, June 13, at the Owls Head Transportation Museum’s Hot Rod and Custom Car show.

The show promises to be one of the most exciting in this year’s series of events because it will feature hundreds of hot rods, street rods, kit cars and custom-built cars — everything from chopped and channeled Chevys to revved-up low riders and hot rod Lincolns.

One dude who’s not about to miss the fun is Rosey Gerry of Lincolnville. Gerry is one of the area’s best-known builders of hot rods and restorers of classic cars. His fondest childhood memory is the first time he ever gripped a steering wheel.

“I eat and sleep cars,” Gerry said recently. “I just have always loved cars. I’ve always been into cars. I can’t remember when I haven’t had a car. My father used to sit me in his lap and let me drive from the beginning of time.”

Gerry was 12 when he got his first car, a 1949 Buick convertible, and figures he’s owned more than 500 in his 50 years on the planet. His current pride and joy is a 1948 Chevrolet convertible that he restored and customized from the frame up.

“It took me five years,” he said. “When I got it, it had no glass, no seats, no upholstery and was buried in pine needles. It basically was completely destroyed.”

Gerry can tick off the car’s history from the day a Belfast doctor bought it at Dutch Chevrolet to every guy who’s owned it since. It once had a Corvette engine. It now has a 1958 GMC six-cylinder mill with three carburetors, lake pipes 1955 Dodge Tropical Coral Rose paint, just as he promised the guy he bought it from when he learned he planned to paint it the same color. The license plate simply says The Rose. The steering wheel is fitted with a “suicide knob” Gerry has owned since he was 8 years old.

In the world of street rods, Gerry was there at the beginning. Custom hot rods came of age in the 1950s. Gerry and his hometown pal Seaward Heal spent many an hour tooling the back roads of Knox and Waldo counties. Heal still has the car bug and helps Gerry assemble some of his creations.

“We were in the first grade together and both loved cars. We used to push cars up and down the road before we were old enough to drive,” Gerry recalled.

Although Gerry now drives a custom street rod, the first one he built was a true hot rod. He still remembers it fondly. A 1927 “original” Model T Ford roadster body on a handmade tubular frame, 1937 Ford steering wheel, 1935 Ford dashboard, 1939 Ford transmission, 1951 Ford steering box, 1941 Lincoln two-speed rear end, powered with a 1953 Mercury 110 horsepower flat-head V-8 engine. “It was a labor of love,” he said.

Most of the parts were collected from Jerry Monroe’s Junk Yard, now just a memory, but just down the road back then.

“He would take care of all of us. You could buy any car of his for $35, most any part for $5. That was the thing about street rods in those days. You could afford them. Today, it’s a pretty expensive hobby. You can spend anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 on a car, depending on what you want.”

Dan Hickey is another of Gerry’s cruising buddies who still lives in town. Hickey runs the local Western Auto store and keeps it well-stocked with hot rod parts and competition equipment. He also keeps a 1932 Ford Cabriolet hot rod in his garage: black primer, 1951 Mercury flat-head V-8 engine, Iskenderian cam shaft, Offenhauser heads.

“I tried to stick with the tradition of what we would have been doing 40 years ago,” Hickey said.

Gerry and his buddies can only smile when they think back on what they consider the glory days. Hanging out on Library Hill in Camden, running the back roads up to Belfast, racing on “Chickie Stretch” or “cruising the rotary” in Rockland. “Hell, there was only one cruiser in Rockland back then and one state trooper covering the whole area,” he said. They had a few wrecks, but by and large survived to see the circle complete itself.

“It’s the same as when I was a kid. There’s plenty of guys out there that love hot cars, it’s just a little different. The kids today, their hot rods are Firebirds and Cameros, or trucks and four-wheelers.”

A single man for the past 20 years, Gerry still enjoys hitting the dance halls and jitterbugging to the music of the ’50s. Cars and girls go together and Gerry has a “close friend” who likes to dance and cruise as much as he does.

“Patsy Cline, Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, surf music, that kind of thing,” he says of tunes that get him dancing. “`Dead Man’s Curve.’ “Maybellene.” Chuck Berry. You know, `Son you’re gonna’ drive me to drinking if you don’t stop driving that Hot Rod Lincoln. ”

For those who want to recapture the past, nostalgia takes money, Gerry said.

“For the kids, money is still an issue. The guys who can afford real street rods, and that’s anything before 1948, they need money because you just don’t find those cars in a barn anymore,” Gerry said. “A lot of those guys, they’re what we call wannabes. They always wanted to be a Fonzie, James Dean or part of the group. Never were then but now they’re into it. There’s other guys in their 60s that are still doing it. Still wearing leather jackets, still cruising.

Gerry just laughs and shrugs his shoulders when he thinks of where it’s all going. He admits to sometimes wondering how he ever got so wrapped up in a pile of steel and the smell of exhaust. With a back yard filled with cars, parts of cars, interspersed with barns and sheds filled with cars and parts of cars, “I have too many cars,” he said. “I have too many.”

Still, he can’t be slowed down. Every year he hops in The Rose and takes off across America to one cruising event or another. If it’s not upstate New York, its downstate South Carolina. Slide onto those leather seats, fire up the engine and just go.

“I’ve seen all the cars I need to see. The real fun for me is driving to and from the event. I love to cruise and I love to see things,” Gerry said. “It’s not a cheap hobby if you want to travel with it. You break down a lot but you just don’t worry about it. I bet half the guys don’t carry a spare tire. Towing your car on a flat bed? That’s an absolute no-no. That is absolutely frowned upon. If you’re into it, you just have to cruise. Riding that highway, I don’t care about the radio at all. I like listening to the motor.”

Cruise and Schmooze

You don’t have to own a hot rod or classic car to run with the crowd that does. Every weekend fans of custom cars have the opportunity to gather at various eastern Maine locations to ogle at street rods and customs.

Friday night “cruise-ins” take place at Nicky’s Drive-In on Union Street in Bangor, Jordan’s Snack Bar on Route 1 in Ellsworth, the Dairy Cup on Northport Avenue in Belfast and Dairy Queen on Route 3 in Belfast.

Val’s Drive-In on Sabattus Street in Lewiston is a favorite cruise-in location. More than 50 hot cars are there to be checked out on any given summer Friday night.

The cruise-ins are basically unorganized gatherings of folks fanatical about sleek sets of wheels and hot cars. The owners drive in, park and shoot the breeze with one another. They also enjoy sharing their expertise and car knowledge with those less fortunate.

The Owls Head Transportation Museum Rod and Custom Meet will be held Sunday, June 13. It runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is located two miles south of Rockland on Route 73, adjacent to the Knox County Airport.

For information, call 594-4418 or visit the museum’s Web site at www.ohtm.org.