'Roadkill' returns to breathe life into Belvedere

At least for a while, Dwain Christopherson, his family, and his business Performance Auto in Otto were characters on Motortrend's "Roadkill" show after filming in June and airing in a brief segment of an episode.

Christopherson said that in June, he was being repeatedly tagged by friends in a Facebook post about the show "Roadkill," a web series hosted on MotorTrend+ about outlandish project cars. The show's crew would be travelling to Billings, Montana, and then drive to Denver, Colorado, and would be filming all along the way. They advertised that they were seeking places with old cars to visit during their trip.

Christopherson's son, Shawn, reached out to representatives from the show online, and heard the response "we'll keep in touch."

They didn't keep in touch very well because the next time the Christopherson's heard from "Roadkill" was at noon on June 27, when they let Shawn know that they would be at Dwain's shop in a couple hours.

Dwain, who was with his wife in Billings at the time of the call, said he hustled home when he found out and beat the crew there by 15 minutes. He said they filmed for about two hours at his shop, which consisted of looking at his inventory of cars and buying an orange 1969 Plymouth Belvedere from Shawn.

The 1969 Belvedere was one of three that Performance Auto had recently purchased. The one "Roadkill" wanted was one of two purchased from a yard in Florence, Montana, that were exposed to the weather and had trees growing around them. Dwain said, "It's a wonder that these cars were in as good of shape as they were."

"Shawn didn't really want to sell it, so he talked to his brother and came up with a price, and then added some on to it. They bought it." Dwain said.

During this time he and his family got to meet the stars of the show, Mike Finnegan and David Freiburger, and talk cars.

He recounts that after that, the crew left and headed to Riverton, and things settled down. He said, "We just assumed that was the end of it. They sent the check to my son and arranged for the car they bought to get picked up and hauled to California. It was already more than I had ever expected." He added, "We had no guarantee that we were going to make it into the episode. My son Shawn, he's the public works director for the town of Meteetsee, he's the family's PR guy and he didn't hear anything about it. We just kind of found out when the episode aired."

Dwain's shop aired on Sep. 25 on the episode "General Mayhem Road Trip". It appeared in a five-minute clip showcasing Performance Auto and highlighting the sale of the Belvedere.

Already this is an unusual story, but it's not over yet. After the episode aired, the car they bought was still sitting in Dwain's shop, and it gave him the idea that they may have changed their plans for the car.

A short while later, he received a phone call from the producer of "Roadkill." He told Dwain that Finnegan, Freiburger and Steve Dulcich, the host of "Roadkill Garage," were interested in coming back to Otto. Dwain said, "They wanted to film an entire episode in our shop where they sourced "junk" parts from nearby to restore the Belvedere."

"So now I'm thinking, 'Great, I have to clean my shop'," Dwain said. He continued, "Of course, you don't believe it until it happens with something like this. So on Monday (Oct. 16), three vehicles showed up carrying everyone and their equipment. That day they just did some drone footage and got everything ready for tomorrow."

The following day, the three hosts flew into Billings where the show's producer went to pick them up. The crew stayed in Cody for a week and commuted to Otto to work on the car. Dwain enjoyed having them there, saying, "These were personable people; they were car guys, they didn't have any scripts."

He added, "Getting to be around it for an entire week, I found out that we even know some things better than they do. My son Mark, who lives in Basin, had to show them some things while they were working on the Belvedere; guys who have TV shows where they work on cars needed my son's advice."

Dwain said that the Roadkill guys cut it close with their goal, but were able to get the car running at about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21. He said, "You might think a lot of these shows would fake it, and just bring in a car and parts from California, but these guys were really wingin' it."

Now, things having seemingly settled down again, Dwain said that "Roadkill" asked him to replace the windshield of the Belvedere and hold onto it until the spring, and that was that.

He said due to the length of time spent filming, he imagines there will be an entire episode that takes place at Performance Auto.

He said, "I hope that people don't expect just because "Roadkill" was here that we are a bigger deal than we are. We're a family business, I'm 65 years old, I'm not trying to grow the business. My kids all have good jobs, and this is more of a hobby for them. We were able to make "Roadkill" happy by pure luck, they made it sound like we have a lot more than we do. We've only got 400 vehicles, not all of them classics. It just so happened that we had a lot of what they were looking for."

The spotlight may not change Dwain, but it has had an impact on his business regardless. He said that just from a clip of his business' sign that aired on the episode he's getting more attention than normal. He said, "It's not every day, but we're getting phone calls because we were on the episode. I've had a $30 sale that I can say came from that episode, and I hope we get more."

Of the whole experience, Dwain simply said "This was my family's Super Bowl."