AUTORAMA - Motor City’s Hot Rod and Custom Car Extravaganza

AUTORAMA IN DETROIT
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel Detroit Bureau

We are truly blessed here in Michigan. Not only do we have the most important new car show in the country, The North American International Auto Show, and one of the most prestigious classic car shows in the world, the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, but we also have the nation’s largest and most respected hot rod and custom car show as well. I’m talking about the 54th Detroit AutoRama.

Cobo Center in downtown Detroit boasts about ¾-million square feet of exhibition space on two floors. All of it was filled this past weekend with eye candy for the gear head. Regardless of what your automotive lust might be you could find something to satiate it at AutoRama. But, even if cars aren’t your thing, if you just enjoy outside-the-box art, you would love this show.

Inside the front door we immediately ran into our friend, “Top Hat” John Jendza, Detroit area collector car expert, TV show host and car show MC. He verified that the Detroit AutoRama is “America’s greatest hot rod show,” better than the prestigious Oakland Roadster Show or any other pretenders. With 600 to 700 cars and trucks and motorcycles of tremendous variety a car guy could spend days browsing here.

My brother, Gary the camera guy, and I attended for the first time so we can give you a fresh look at the show. We scanned the main hall, 600,000-square feet of that abovementioned ¾ million, and literally gasped at what we saw. The first four rows of cars are the premier entries in show. In the first row we were immediately drawn to a spectacular ’59 Chevy mild custom with huge chrome wheels, ’56 Chevy trim, side exhaust and a paint job from heaven. Owned by Bob and Barb Delia of Libertyville, Illinois, it has a 540-cu-in, 1000 horsepower engine and is called “So Big.”

Across the isle, tilted up for better viewing on lush white carpet, was last year’s winner of the coveted Ridler Award, Ron Reister’s sleek ’36 Ford Roadster, in a rich pewter color literally glowing under the intense lights of the exhibition hall. The Ridler Award is sort of a best-of-show award and can only be won by a car the very first time it is shown.

We chatted with Denny Miller from Bettendorf, Iowa over his brilliant red ’69 Camaro SS mild custom. He explained that the show director, a fellow named Buzzy, determines where each car is displayed as he tries to put the best cars near the front of the hall. So it is quite an honor to be here in the front row. Miller’s Camaro won its class at the Milwaukee show a few weeks ago. To fit into the mild custom class he is only allowed five exterior alterations and he used them well, recessing the taillights just an inch, adding awesome twin hood scoops and dressing it up inside and out. His engine compartment is a piece of art in itself trimmed smoothly with no guts showing. He has about a quarter-million dollars in the car but expects to sell it for a considerable profit before long as he finishes his next show car. He does a fresh car about every two years but his wife doesn’t complain since he makes money on them all.

My favorite in the front section is a contender for this year’s Ridler Award, a ’41 Willys “HR Legens” full custom pickup, barely recognizable as a Willys, with two-tone metallic champaign paint and a shape like nothing else. The rounded cabin looks as if it could swivel or turn and the interior is sculpted gracefully and simply – a real knockout. Owner Seth Wagner from Crystal Lake, Illinois gets my vote with this beauty.

We strolled around the floor for hours. Every conceivable kind of rod and custom car and motorcycle was displayed beautifully. More than a dozen historic Ed Roth radical customs were grouped in two sections. You may remember names like, Beatnik Bandit, Outlaw, Tweedy Pie and Druid Princess. Interspersed with the cars and trucks were vendors and service providers who court this crowd. At one we encountered a fascinating fellow, retired from GM design who worked with, and has stories about, all the GM legends like Harley Earl and Larry Shinoda.

Being a creature of the 60s I was drawn to cars of that era like a striking black ’61 Chrysler Newport pillarless hardtop station wagon mild custom with wonderful gaudy and exaggerated lines, a cute VW bus that had been sectioned and adorned with ostrich and bamboo trim and a perfectly restored ’67 big block Corvette Coupe with a sign saying “Last Corvette.” In small print was a disclaimer acknowledging that, certainly they made Corvettes after ’67, but who really cares.

Downstairs were the “Rat Rods”, a motley collection of mechanical innovations in various states of rust, primer and mixed theme. Many of these are the kind that are ridden hard and put away wet. Creative gear heads constructed elaborate displays like the one I would call “a project car in a puddle of parts.” Another was put together by a fellow and his grandson and featured crude art pieces of all kinds including a bird’s nest sitting on the intake manifold.

Another Chip Foose project was on display downstairs. Called “Street fighter” it was in primer and an early stage of development, powered by a ’42 Lincoln flat-head V-12 and fashioned after a P-40 military aircraft with six flattened exhaust pipes sticking out each side of the hood. Across the isle was about a half dozen well-used hot rods and about as many club members lollygagging around among them. Across the other isle about three-dozen Japanese and American tuner cars were packed in together. What a great variety of vehicles representing our passions.

If there was an award for having the most fun at the show it would go to Dan Dennis and his pals from suburban Detroit. We found them hanging around their ’28 Ford Roadster Pickup called Miss Buck-N-A. With a homeland defense theme, Miss Buck-N-A has controls and other parts from WWII military aircraft and a nitrous bottle made out of a bombshell. These fellows recent took her out for a first test drive on a bitterly cold winter day. The thrill of the wild ride insulated them from the cold.

AutoRama entrants vie for about 25 separate class awards, not counting the Ridler Award, with cash prizes from $150 to $750. Only a few come for the prizes or the competition. Most are just there to show off their creations and enjoy everyone else’s.

As we were drifting toward the door with sore, tired feet after eight hours of awe, we encountered our friend Tom Hale, internationally renowned automotive fine artist, enjoying the show with his framer. They summed it up insightfully by noting that unlike the collector and classic car shows, here at AutoRama you never know what off-the-wall thing is around each corner. This is where car guys think outside the proverbial box. Here there are no artificial standards or limits.

And that, my friends, is what makes this a great show; as well as being a great place to run into friends.