Father's Day

The L.A Roadsters Put On The Gretest Show On Earth, At Least On...

By Ron Ceridondo, Chris Shelton

Summer's here and while everyone was still drying off from the winter's rain, the L.A. Roadsters' car club was gearing up for their 41st annual gathering of all that is open and prewar. Each year, thousands of curious, globetrotting spectators, car owners, and enthusiasts head out to Southern California to take part in one of the most epically historic events on the hot rodding calendar. To call this show anything short of extraordinary would be an understatement.

The scope of the show literally runs the full gamut of taste. From primered, traditional hot rods in the specialty parking area of the fairgrounds, to the painted and upholstered roadster parking area under the trees, this show provides so much eye candy that it's easy to miss something. By the time I got through the huge swap meet (they say they had to increase the size by 100 spaces this year) I was too tired to even put a dent in the huge roadster parking area. The show spans the entire Father's Day weekend for a reason--one day is just not enough. But that wasn't always the case.

The show started 41 years ago as a modest, one-day gathering of early tin enthusiasts at the nearby Hollywood Bowl parking lot. It was held there for the first three years, although there was a five-year gap between number 2 and 3 after which the roadster show/ swap meet was moved to the Great Western Exhibit Center. It was around 1980 when the "roadsters" moved to the Pomona Fairplex, where it is still held now.

The event has increased in size like a snowball every year. With the largest gathering of roadsters (nearly 900), one of the finest swap meets for early Ford enthusiasts, and a specialty parking area for all other makes and models that has become a show in and of itself, it's no wonder the L.A. Roadster Show has become the event of the summer in the hot rodding community.

Just one person wouldn't be enough to cover the show, so Editor Brennan asked staffers Ceridono and Shelton, along with SRM co-founder Tex Smith, to chime in with insights. If you've got the itch to come out to sunny Southern California, mark your calendar for Father's Day weekend in the middle of June--there are activities going on throughout the weekend and it's an event not to be missed!

The Swap MeetBy Ron Ceridono
It never fails; every year the L.A. Roadsters' Father's Day doins' brings out rare and unusual cars, parts, and pieces. The annual swap meet is like a rusty hot rodder's horn of plenty.

Like most years, there were a variety of cool cars for sale. There were barn finds, abandoned projects, solid drivers, and even a show-winner or two. Prices, as always, were all over the map. Some sellers were just trolling, but there were a number who were serious about selling; consequently there were a number of excellent buys on complete cars. Of course they didn't last long.

When it comes to rare and unusual parts, this swap meet is the place to find them. One of our out-of-town friends has been scouring the country for an original Kong Flathead ignition--we found three of them at Father's Day. Wandering the aisles we found everything from a Bonneville record-holding Ardun-equipped Flathead to Offy and Meyer-Drake Indy engines. There was lots of sheetmetal, some N.O.S. (new old stock) and some N.W.B. (not worth buying).

Although the search for R.N.O.S. (real neat old stuff) is the primary reason most of us go to the swap meet, for others it has become a social event. People from all over the country come to SoCal just to be part of the scene, which always includes some real hot rod heroes. We ran across Tex Smith, Dick Scritchfield, Neal East (all early club members and magazine contributors), and a host of others. If you're looking for cool cars, unusual parts, or rare pieces--or if you just want hang out on Father's Day--join us next year.

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Tex Recalls The Early Days
Tex Smith is one of the original members of the L.A. Roadsters. He also documented many of the club's activities in magazine articles during those early days. We cornered Tex at this year's show and swap and asked him to compare it to yesteryear; here's what he had to say:

"Typically I was hanging around the offices of Hot Rod and Rod & Custom, this time visiting with Tom Medley and Bud Bryan at R&C. The conversation got around to the new Los Angeles Roadster car club rod show coming to the Hollywood Bowl parking lot. 'I heard about this thing they are doing in the East called a swap meet,' offered Tom, 'and I'm going to see if we can't help them include one in the show.' How innocent a remark, but how remarkable the outcome.

"With the efforts of club member Jim Travis, and the support of Rod & Custom, the club's third roadster show included a swap meet. And while the swappers could be counted on two hands at that first effort, the idea struck a nerve. Within a couple of years, both the show and the swap had come to such a size that the venue had to keep growing and growing, eventually ending in the huge Los Angeles County Fairgrounds (now called the Pomona Fairplex). Where NHRA holds major drags, where the NHRA museum is, where the swap meet now rivals the nation's best.

"Along with the location there have been some other changes over the years. Back at that very first swap, I recall looking at a full triple carburetor setup for a Flathead Ford V-8 with a price tag of $12! Couple of years later, a nice '29 full-fendered A roadster changed hands for $850. Candy paint, Tijuana pleats, chrome wheel; a really nice streeter. Several years after that, I sold a '34 roadster at this swap for a whopping $1,500. But an interesting thing was happening in hot rodding. With the advancing years beginning to eat up available building materials, some saw what was coming and began stocking up on increasingly rare items. Those rare items that were not normally seen at a regular old car-type swap meet, but were at the "roadster" show swap. Thus it was that the roadster show steadily built a reputation second to none, and ever so quietly, the adjoining swap came of age. Who'd a thunk back at the Hollywood Bowl it would lead to what we have today?"

This swapper is parting the sea of rocker covers, manifolds, pans, bellhousings, transmissions, and who knows what else. If it's a hot rod part, you're likely to find it someplace on the grounds.

PREFERRED PARKING
By Chris Shelton
Warning! I am about to single-handedly make more friends and enemies with the following statement: The best reason to make the L.A. Roadsters' Father's Day meet lies outside the official event. That's right, the big draw isn't the shiny, T-to-'37 finished roadsters inside the official show. Well, to me at least.

No, it's the preferred parking section that's really the reason to make the show a must-see event. While they're both neat to see once in the flesh, I can neither identify with someone else's finished dream car nor can I afford the sellers-market swap meet.

It's not that I tolerate the unfinished and imperfect goods in the parking lot, it's that I actually prefer them; it gives me a chance to see greatness in the making. It gives me the opportunity to impart my own preferences on often-primered, sometimes-cobby bodies (the cars that is). It also lets me see all that creativity before it gets all covered up in paint or plate. Give me inspiration of the fabricators and leave the jubilation to the car show crowd. While I've covered the Father's Day meet for five years for STREET RODDER, it's inevitably been to report on the events inside the fence; everybody else got to rub elbows at the swap vendor barbecues in years past. For once, I put my foot down. As I told editors Brennan, Manson, and Ceridono, if I have to schlep one more aisle of bright, shiny roadsters, I'm going to scream. Well, it really wasn't that bad, but I still pulled rank on Ryan Manson and made him officially cover the event for once. And man, did it feel good!

The truth of the matter is that, other than photos and their captions, historically speaking there's usually not much to officially report outside the show proper. Not this year, however. The Red Sweaters finally buckled under and admitted that there's some pretty cool stuff in the preferred parking. They responded by allocating a block of preferred parking spaces to Mark Morton and his HOP UP magazine cronies. Mark et al took the opportunity to jam-pack the area with as much old-timey hot rod goodness one person could take. As a matter of fact, by 9 a.m. the HOP UP corral brimmed to the point where aspiring gow-parkers commandeered all the civilian spaces at the periphery. The official HOP UP balloon flew Jolly Roger-style over the pirated space as an indication that all was good in the world (well, in the preferred parking lot at least).

I, for one, took the opportunity to bask in the glow of shadowed chrome, rubbed-through paint, and the occasional blow-by waft. Once I got enough of that, I ambled along the preferred parking aisles willy-nilly, swapped lies with the builders, and lunched on my buddies' barbecued treats. The variety of the environment renewed my old perspective on the preferred parking area; this is the place where the shiny and the shabby share the same glory. It's where the exiled non-roadsters and unfinished cars and the expatriated finished roadsters that easily qualify for the show yet would rather pay to hang out with friends get together on common ground. It's so damned democratic and down-to-earth that I can hardly stand it.

In case you haven't guessed, I can tell you where I'm spending next Father's Day.