The Other Hot Rod Show on Australia Day Weekend.

Let's take a trip to the Mexico room and check out the low-riders.

These are some of the most incredibly detailed cars you'll ever see and the owners, some of the friendliest most enthusiastic car guys you can find to talk to.

These guys especially love to demonstrate all the trick operational features built into their rides.

However, most spectacular is usually the paint.


Every line on this 'flake and candy hued Chevy is in perfect alignment from one panel to the next.


Even between the outside and inside.


One of the things that has added appeal for me at least, is that crushed velour is now out of fashion and highly detailed soft leather upholstery is 'in'.


The Lowrider guys don't just do cars, they also like the two wheelers so naturally there's a few low slung motorcycles on show.


Same incredible detail, including the engraving......


......and wild paint.


Of course not all low-riders have wild multi coloured paint and the guys are also open minded when it comes to make model and year, anything goes.


Yellow/lime 'Flake, Candy and Pearl mix on this Chevy was stunning.




As too was the candy apple over red metal flake on this one.


Green is also popular.


With matching upholstery of course.


Naturally they also have blues and purples on the colur palette!




These guys also dig an early car, especially the late thirties through early '50s Chebby.


And they all get the same treatment.


Not to mention incredible detail, look past the engraving on the bumper guard and check out the airbrushed mural on the backing pieces of the grille.


Did I mention these guys are big into custom paint treatments?


And ultra-fine detailing?


The really early cars tend to be painted just a single colour, or two shades of the same.


But rarely are two cars painted exactly the same colour.


Unusual body styles are sought out to help ensure no two cars are identical.


Sedan deliveries have room for hydraulics with space last over for hauling stuff too.


And because this is all about family fun, four doors are often considered better than two.


Sometimes a simple solid shade works better than the pearls, candies and other custom finishes.


However, the level of detail and functionality is not negotiable.
Likewise, the more period accessories, the better.

Well I guess, MU comes after ME in the dictionary and that means we';re up for some Muscle cars!

There wuz more than a few late model muscle and sports cars and they were no less well detailed than any of the other show cars.

This bright yellow late '50s 'Vette was definitely an eye poppin' head turner.


The colour simply made it jump out and say 'hello there"!


Yup, another one I coulda brung home, just as well I'm not made of money, I could get into big trouble.


My favourite 'Vette is the '63 Fuelie, this one was one of the best I've ever seen.


A little early sixties MOPAR muscle is always good to see.


Especially when it's got a big Max Wedge power plant.


Looking the same only diferentt, this factory racer sits right up near the top of the most desirable list.


The 426 Race Hemi kinda helps put it up there.


The plain Jane looks make it too cool for school.


Another bad boy MOPAR, this time a Family Truckster.


What makes it bad?
How about a new era Hemi drivetrain for starters!


Not to be outdone, Da General added dual fours to his 409, along with the four speed and pos-a-traction rear, which made his early sixties light weigh cars winners on the track too.


The old trophy is from the '63 Nationals where this puppy won the Super Stock Class.


It's kinda cool to look inside a full size Chevy and see three pedals, Hurst shifter, but no radio or heater and a taxi cab style bench seat with rubber floor mats etc. If it wasn't gonna help win races then it's not in there.


Just to make up for the Commodore boot I posted earlier, here's a Camaro.


Now back to the full size factory racers, the machines that rolled off the showroom floor wearing these and could cut winning times straight out of the box and do it all day long.


Since we got the other two, it just wouldn't be right not to have something from Henry's stable.


And of course it's just gotta have the venerable 427 side oiler under that big hood bubble.


The Ford interior isn't quite as spartan as the others.


There's a lot of very quick imports in the US, even back in the day of the big Muscle cars.


And stuff like this little Hiroshima Screama is still kicking Yankee V8 butt!


This late Fairlane looked the ducks guts with it's perfect stance, bug wheels and modern low profile performance rubber.


Here's why it needed the trick suspension and grippy tars.


Neat Chevy II for street and strip makes no bones what it was all about.


What muscle car essay could be complete without one of these?


And of course everybody should have one of these for chasing parts.


Not sure how to classify this one, not a factory lightweight, or a muscle car, but it sure was cool in satin finish with heaps of detailing.


Even stock Tri-Fiive Chevy's did OK when they were new, but with a little help they could turn downright mean.


This one has just a tad more than a ;little' help.


Similar to the satin gold Chevy only different, there's just so many variations, which is what makes hot rodding fun.


It was almost impossible to get a clean shot of George Poteet's latest Tro built ride, coz it had a bigger crowd than this around it all weekend.


Here's what they are looking at.


No matter how patient the photographer, they just would not get out of the frame!


Here's the other side of the under hood space.


Never mind the trick door trim, check out the pedal box on the floor.


As always with trop built cars, the workmanship and innovation was typically 'out there' yet the machine truly driveable, it even looks very comfortable in the cockpit.


HOORAY! Patience pays off and I finally got a clean shot.

A couple of years ago, there was a deuce roadster advertised on e-bay for almost nothing.
Apparently nobody believed it was a genuine sale so only one guy bid and he won the auction for ten bux.

This is that car.


The dude would have been feeling pretty good about the deal, so imagine how much better he felt on learning the car's history.


And the guys who laughed and ignored it because they thought it was a joke, I'll bet they never do that again.


Antique timing tags sure do add some value to an old hot rod.


Notice how this unrestored machine appears to have been a pretty nice rod in the day, still looks OK to me. Also noticed that about the Westagard car, it was once nicely painted, kinda confirming what I've always said about the standard of finish on rods of the forties and fifties.


The little banger is pretty nicely detailed too.


Valiant owners would love these, I know I do, they have bulbs inside so the eagle's eyes light up at night.


Some of the local stripers are very talented artists.


Some of the clubs have funny names.


Some of the cars are a bit off centre too.


This one isn't called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but La Bestioni (get it?)…..


……. probably due to the 900 c.i. 1919 aeroplane engine.


Good to see lots of different engine options on show….


…..and for sale.






Until now, the So Cal Speed Shop's finned Buick drums with hidden discs have been about as cool as hot rod braking systems could look. Not anymore, as these Kinemont disc look-alikes are way kooler ……


……..and probably have better cooling/ventilation for the modern disc brake system they disguise.


I've talked and written often about how old cars all have some hidden stories to tell.
Can you imagine what this one could talk about considering these are original forties era decals?


I include this image here because I'm not sure if it's a car pretending to be a bike or a bike that's part way through morphing into a car.

There's lotsa vendors at the Roadster Show, with some really neat stuff, so let's check a few of them out before we move on.
Since the theme was surfing, you'd expect at least one board seller.


The steering wheel guys had pretty much every wheel imaginable covered, except of course the one I was looking for.


This one was pretty cool, however I figured it wasn't a good substitute for the one I was hunting.


Naturally there were many die cast model vendors, this guy had boats too.


…..and one or two neat die cast model aeroplanes.


Almost enough to make a bloke turn to things with wings.


These deuce pedal cars were about as cool as pedal cars get.


Music was well covered with a few neat record players.


Or if you prefer it live, a couple of instruments.


Need some refreshment?
This guy had a few of these in various phases of original to reconditioned and had a listing showing hundreds more.


This was mostly automotive memorabilia, but not sure how Ronald fits in, maybe he's from a drive thru?


I love the polly gas pumps.


Saw these guys at Yokohama show in December, they didn't stop painting all weekend.


Along with the selling vendors, there was lots of other stuff happening too.


This is the preparation room, I'd love to know what the chick's standing were discussing and what the gal in the chair was thinking? Maybe we should have a caption competition?


Cool sign up for grabs at the charity auction, I made a couple of bids, but it went way beyond what I was prepared to pay.


Evidence that some hot roders do have a sense of humour.


Is this the latest trend?
We've had channelled coupes and highboy coupes, now we got us the jacked up body coupe!


I've been looking forward to seeing Kent Fuller's streamliner in the skin, ever since my buddy Karl painted it and sent me pics of the newly shiny body panels.


It'll run one or two flatheads and should have no trouble breaking the 200 barrier, since it has almost no frontal area.


Just in case he breaks an engine, Kent has a few fresh spares.


These guys were sent to guard the big trophy.


They look a little like the giant sized academy award I have in the shed waiting to be repainted.


I love it when hot roders go beyond the mainstream and come up with different ways to do stuff.



Speaking of different, this little skoot reminded me of industrial equipment, but it's a genie '40s era street rider.

Pete,

An amazing series of photos.

The Mexican selection certainly do stand out !!

I probbably shouldnt admit to it but those Mexican Lowriders are amongst my favourites, OK i'm not big on the 13" wire wheels but the rest is pretty cool. My brain is overloaded at the moment so a couple of hours will be spent tonight reading and looking.

It's OK Dave, I won't tell anybody you've gone over to the dark side.

Good news is I went to a street show held by these guys in 2011, Ron was a bit loathe to head into that part of Los Angeles, but he soon discovered what I already knew and that is that car guys look after car guys and we'd have as much fun at a Chicano car show than anywhere as a result. But again that's a story for another day and right now we've got the final sho hall to look inside.

The 'Suede Palace' is where the cars are not quite finished or prepared to the high show standard seen elsewhere……..


…… however, it has a pretty big crowd all weekend.


Whilst there's a few cars like this, in the palace, there's no rat rods or shot rods, everything is roadworthy and in good condition, unless like this, it's the latest barn find of an old hot rod with a genuine pedigree.


Of course there's quite a few newly built hot rods here, put together using mostly old parts……


……also recently built cars that fit the late forties through fifties, even sixties theme, that are built using contemporary methods and parts, but still looking like genuine throwbacks to another time.


Some builders like Bo Huff, prefer to show their cars in the Palace because they are a better fit (both Bo and his cars), even though they are brand new builds.


Pretty much everything in the Palace is a driven hot rod or kustom, but there's actually very few primered cars, which means they do get their share of spit n polish.


Of course some, but not as many as I thought, are actually in suede paint.


The gasser look is also popular in the Suede Palace.


Here's a few genuine old hot rods, mostly unrestored, just as they were back in the fifties.


This sedan might have been an unusual ride for that time, but then the famous Bob McCoy car was also a Tudor, so I imagine there was probably quite a few of them, as they would have been cheap and plentiful, kinda like FJ Holdens here in the early sixties.


This one I recall appeared in Hot Rod magazine and maybe a couple of others.


Yup, it's another shed find that remains pretty much unchanged from it's heyday. No weight and all that engine, I reckon it would have been quite a handful on the street or strip.


This little pickup was about as low as you could go with an old car and still get inside to drive it.

Dave Mock, built his car way back in the fifties and it remains very much unchanged. The blown Olds under the hood is period perfect, because it was a brand new engine when it went in there. If I was going to have a '40 Ford coupe, this would be the car! Everything about it is just perfect, including the patina from over 50 years of driving on Alaskan roads.


That's right, Dave came all the way from Alaska to win the Suede Palace top car award for 2013.


Yet another Hot Rod magazine feature car that looks like it's been through some hard times but is still going strong.


Im reliably informed that this old Willys did duty during the gasser wars of the 1960s.


This one appears to be styled after, but not a clone of the famous Matranga Merc.


Looks good in company with neat A roadster.


I'm not sure why, but I didn't seem to shoot as many pics in here as the other halls.
Maybe it was due to being spooked by a weirdo in the crowd.
Look at this picture, all the people are blurred but did you notice there's one very scary looking dude, staring straight into my camera lense and he looks like he's just swallowed a live squirrel!

Actually the guy in the picture above is my friend, Aussie kustom painter and pinstriped Matt Egan, who didn't expect to see me at the show and at this point was trying to figure out if it was me or just some local guy who looked like me. Matt has just relocated to Los Angeles to work his magic in the big game.

Interesting observation is that it seems GM cars of the late forties and early fifties are much more popular than the slab sided shoebox Fords of the same period.


Some are nice original cars in great shape and treated to some suspension tuning and a mechanical freshen up.


Others are a bit more radically modified or reworked.


Bo seemed to be leading the Ford brigade….


… and this shoebox Tudor was a great shade of blue.


A cross between piss yeller and puke green seems to work as well on a shoebox Vicky as it once did on a Deuce coupe.


And of course, no show of Kustom cars would be complete without at least one chopped '49/51 Mercury.


So that pretty much covers the Grand National Roadster Show for 2013, but there's lots more places I've been and one of them was right next door, but maybe I should start a whole new thread for the Wally Parks NHRA Museum.

Great photos & text Carps, much appreciated.
Dave, here's some info on that lavender bubble top.

http://www.boldride.com/ride/1955/ford-beatnik-bubbletop-custom-#gallery/2