The event, held August 9 at the Pottsville Fire Company, featured a wide variety of classic cars, trucks, street rods and special-interest vehicles.
Bach, who portrayed Daisy Duke during all seven seasons of the hit television series, became a fashion icon for her character’s signature cutoff shorts, which became widely known as “Daisy Dukes.”
Show committee member Jeff Bowers brought Bach back to Pottsville after her appearance attracted an overwhelming response in 2025. Bowers said he contacted Bach after last year’s show and asked whether she would be interested in returning in 2026.
She happily accepted the invitation.
Bach arrived at noon in Bowers’ 1969 Dodge Charger General Lee and was greeted by a long line of fans awaiting her appearance. She spent the next five hours meeting fans, posing for photographs in front of the General Lee and signing autographs and “Dukes of Hazzard” memorabilia.
Bowers said he has become friends with several cast members from the television series during the past four years and has welcomed multiple stars to the Pottsville show since 2022.
“Catherine Bach, Jeff Altman, who played Hughie Hogg, and Tom Wopat, who played Luke Duke, and I talk and text regularly,” Bowers said. “They’re just really great people who’ve become friends.”
Also appearing at this year’s show was Alma Viator, wife of Ben Jones, who portrayed the lovable mechanic and tow-truck driver Cooter Davenport on the series.
Known to fans as “Miss Alma,” Viator operates the Cooter’s Place stores and museums. The business is headquartered in Luray, Virginia, with additional locations in Pigeon Forge and Nashville, Tennessee.
Bowers has invited Viator to Pottsville for the past two years to operate a Cooter’s Place merchandise stand at the show, offering “Dukes of Hazzard” items to fans.
The show committee thanked Mike Litwak of JRL Emergency Services and Gino Yourey of Coal Region Consulting & Investigations for serving as the event’s primary sponsors.
Organizers are already planning changes for next year, with the committee announcing that the event will return to a rolling-cruise format in 2027.
“We plan on starting it small and building up,” Bowers said. “We’d like to see where it goes. The ’90s and 2000s cruise nights were epic. We’d like to return to that tradition.”
