Purple seems to be big this year...Saturday morning, the party cranked up at Aaron Bessant Park on Front
Beach Road. All the major sponsors were there; Chevrolet and Chrysler were
showing prototype vehicles, the others were doing major marketing. One
of the really cool ones was Comp Cams, who had a dyno truck there - chain
your car down and test the rear-wheel horsepower. FlowMaster Exhaust were
saying that they would sponsor musical entertainment in the evening, and
brought in Sha Na Na, the 50s group extreme. As luck would have it, of
course, the pics I took in the evening were on a flaky diskette, and wouldn't
read (sigh), but I have a pagefull here. Enjoy.
Purple seems to be big this year...
Ahh... T- Buckets. This is what many people think of when they think "hotrod". These have been around since the '30s, and
continue to be very popular. Practical? No. Safe? No. Cool? Hell yes!
Even more purple!
Big Dog Motorcycles was there, also. Many bikers are also hot rodders, and vice versa, and the
Big Dog folks were getting a lot of interest.
Happens to the best of us; this fellow got hit by an entire wheel that came off a truck ahead of him. He picked up a box of
markers, and the splotchy paint job is actually thousands of "sympathy signatures".
The Hot Rod
recovery truck had to grab this poor guy 100 miles out of Panama City when his transmission went.
The Hot Rod staff traveled in this Power Tour van provided by Chevrolet.
Hot Wheels is a big sponsor, and was there in force.
Their trailer, behind the motorhome, was doing brisk sales. Backward to the usual process,
they patterned this full-size rod after a Hot Wheels car!
Back to the basic highboy; Gentlemen, this is a hot rod...
This guy is a carpenter by trade, and naturally thought to build
up a woody using mahogony and teak. Beautiful.
I called this Plymouth "pinkeye", but the owner calls it "the winker". It is beautifully done, and is reproduced in RC car form
for his young son. The RC version was sitting on top of the car, and it's well done, too!
The dynomometer truck was very popular. This Camaro was pushing 378 hp at the rear wheels!
If you're gonna
travel, do it in comfort! This was a "southwest theme" panel delivery out of New Mexico.
The Panama City PD has a couple of hotrodder officers. They did the resto-rod thing on this junkyard copcar. Beautiful.
Being a police officer in a beach town, and being assigned to the hot rod tour. It's a tough job, but
somebody has to do it...
Purple again. These guys drove down from Chicago!
If you are a flathead Ford v-8 man, this was nirvana.
I counted 11 flatties!
Translate this - it says a mouthful...
This guy was staying at our hotel, with a bunch of others. Gee... I've never
seen a tunnel-ram V8 Pinto before...
More flames! This Ford pickup had all the comforts; air, power
everything, tilt/telescope wheel, stereo, even a water heater for
instant coffee! I didn't see a live-aboard butler, but there must be
one...
Of course, all good things must end. Sunday morning, we had a walk on the beach, breakfast, and a soak in the pool, and headed Van Ugly back home. It was a great trip for all; I did the Power Tour, and the women got in their quota of shopping, fancy eating, and soaking in the pool. I was amongst over 1000 hot rods from 19 states and Canada, saw Sha Na Na, got to ride a Big Dog Predator, and got only slightly sunburned. A worthwhile long weekend.