2010 LA Roadster Show – Father’s Day Special

For 46 years now, the LA Roadster Show brings the best topless hot rods to the Pomona Fairplex on Father’s Day weekend.

2010 LA Roadsters Show

Southern California, no doubt the Father and birthplace of hot rodding, knows how to pack in roadsters for a show. As I’ve mentioned before, this show also packs in every other kind of vintage ride cruising LA’s overcrowded and bumpy highways . Walking what I’ve call the “proper” LA Roadster Show grounds, I shot these pictures. More shots of what’s outside the show are coming.

Utilizing the golden morning sun that finally peaked out of the morning haze, I shot this roadster. Maybe it was parked in the swap area, but it woulda easily fit inside.

While not offering a lot of shade, these palms offer a sweet California backdrop for this dark blue deuce roadster.

I’m shooting what I think are the best detailed engines at the show. That’s why I noticed this black roadster with traditional style flames and wires.

From there, I started thinking of my kids and how I’d haul them around in these roadsters… hey, it’s almost Father’s Day! To fit the whole family, these next roadster, while not your every day grocery getting rides, get you to the show in style!

First, pure hot rod is spoken here: Deep black paint, flathead motivation and details drooling from every clean line…

Finally, kids, how’d you like Dad to drop you off in this cool cruiser? With the unchopped top and four doors for easy access, this roadster’s ready for daily family duties.

It’s late, the show was immense and we all need rest! More pics on the way, so much more you’ll find the best coverage of the LA Roadster Show here at MyRideisMe.com.

Update! Check out all the pictures here:

LA Roadster Show Picture Gallery

13 of the Best Hot Rod Engines at LA Roadster Show

First Look: 2010 LA Roadster Show

Hot Rod & Custom Car Show Pictures

2011 LA Roadster Show coverage available now!

Shiny and finished roadsters from 2011 LA Roadster Show

Line-up of LA’s finest roadsters in Pomona, CA

What to get the father who has everything and likes it? The LA Roadster show in Pomona, CA.

2010 LA Roadsters Show

Arriving at the Pomona Fairplex, we were row 7 of 8 waiting in lines almost a quarter mile long to get into one of the best swap meets you’ll find. Maybe not the biggest swap, but in terms of the hard to find and rare items, this swap’s got you covered. Expect to pay a fair price though, buyers come from all over the world to take part in the LA Roadster Show events.

Vintage gauges and gauge panels anyone? This swapper had several complete sets to choose from or finish your set with the extras he had on hand.

After you check out the swap, the vender area’s not disappointment. Brookville steel deuce body anyone?

I also found the steel roadster bodies made by our friends at American Speed Company.

A few years ago, their display had one car and 3 bodies on display. Now they have 3 extremely fine examples of cars built using the American Speed Roadster body.

The vendor area’s also got special interest cars like Don “The Snake” Purdhomme’s funny car brought in on it’s old time carrier is a look back in time. No 18 wheeler fleet back then. (what, no spare bullets in the other rig? Where’s your data acquisition system?!)

Then there’s the roadsters! The LA Roadsters club has been around 50+ years so this show draws the finest roadsters in the LA area, but also non-members from all over the world. Just make sure you’re bringing a finished, shiny paint car or you won’t get in.

Amongst the vendors but leading the roadster charge for years are cars built by South San Fransisco builder Roy Brizio. The color of this purple-perfect drop top can’t be described in words or this picture.

I’m pretty sure this blacked-out mag wheel with redlines was a Brizio car too. (I’ll confirm that when we’ve caught up on sleep!)

But when you make your rounds past the shiny painted beauties and start to circle back near the swap, you find the “show within the show”.

Some of these cars might fit the LA Roadster Show criteria but for whatever reason, don’t park over there. They park in the swap or near by and it makes for some great photos!

So this is just the start of the LA Roadsters weekend. Heck, officially, it hasn’t even started yet. So look for more posts about the Roadsters, the swap finds and our favorite rides and pictures from the So-Cal show too.

2010 LA Roadsters Show Coverage – Check out these stories too!

2010 LA Roadster Show – Father’s Day Special

Standing Out At LA Roadster Show

LA Roadster Show Picture Gallery

13 of the Best Hot Rod Engines at LA Roadster Show

Pinstriping pictures from the LA Roadster Show

1 Hot Rod + 2 Countries = 3 New Friends

Sapporo, Japan is NOT what people think of as a center for hot rodding car culture and they’re right, its not.  But, there is a cool dude from Japan who’s a real hot rodder living the hot rod life.   Kiyoshi Tanomura (aka Tano) and I became Facebook friends a couple weeks ago.  I accepted Tano’s request solely because of his Profile Picture.  It was a picture of this 1926 Ford Model T roadster, built in the Traditional rod style.  I saw his Japanese name with that American hot rod picture and said to myself, “I need to find out about this guy!”

Just looking at the roadster, would you expect this to come out of Japan?  As you can imagine, the hot rod parts came from the States.  The build is a well thought out, period correct hot rod that few could achieve.  Japanese car nuts are just the type to achieve such a build.  Why?  From what little I know about the Japanese culture is they have great respect for their ancestors and history, they are very detailed oriented, even passionate about the details and seem to be natural engineers.

Tano mentions two friends from the USA who he said I needed to talk to, partly because his English is not too good and partly because Dave and Tony have played a big part in Tano building his hot rod.

Unfortunately, before Tano and his early American hot rod building buddies got the honest help they needed from Dave and Tony, they had to deal with the greedy Americans who would either not ship the parts that Tano paid for or dishonestly send crap that was unsafe or unusable.

I called Tony on the phone to get his thoughts on Tano and his hot rod since he’s  known Tano for about 4-5 years now.  Tony’s a Circle Track guy who builds modern Oldsmobile racing engines through his company called Lombardi Motorsports where he also builds hot rods and street cars in addition to racecars.

One of the parts Tony sold Tano was this rare Edmonds Oldsmobile intake manifold from the 50′s.  This manifold does not just bolt on to Tano’s 324ci V8.  Tony had to customize it some to mount it to the Olds engine while looking like a bolt on affair.  You guys ever seen this manifold before?

Tano is running Stromberg 97′s atop this Olds Rocket engine.  Ok, so the 324 was not the original “Rocket Oldsmobile” engine you say?  You are correct.  Check out this picture below showing how Tano customized and made to look period correct using these 324ci valve covers.  So cool!

As you dig on this “Oldsmobile Rocket” valve cover emblem swap, Tony pointed out that Tano is NOT your usual Japanese loyal car guy.  Duh!!!  Tano drives American, like his old F150 that Tony had to send parts to Japan to keep running.  Tano does not drive Toyotas, Nissans or Hondas, that’s for sure.

Tony says that Tano’s hot rod is more period correct than most hot rods built in the USA today.  Having been to the Salt Flats, Tano’s car would definitely fit in.

Speaking of Bonneville, I asked Tano if he had plans to attend Bonneville Speedweek someday.  He said he’s waiting for his 12 year old son Joe (pictured here learning to drive in a Custom 50′s Chevy convertible in a Japanese parking lot!!!) to get his drivers license so that he can make some runs down the Great White Dyno.  I love this picture, father and son bonding time in a 60+ year old custom!  What a cool dad you have Joe!

Here’s Tano himself, chillin’ in his rod.  Tano has done exactly what he should do with a car like this… which is drive the crap out of it!  Tano’s taken his ’26 hot rod from Sapporo in Northern Japan on a roadtrip down to the southern end of the island country and back.  Whoa!  Wicked cool!  I’m running out of adjectives here Tano.

Tano put together this image of a map next to his hot rod.  That red dot up in the north is Sapporo, where his “rod trip” began.

I will say, one of my favorite parts of traditional hot rods are the bomber seats.  Tano says these babies are from a P-38 Lightning, a WWII fighter/bomber.  Tony mentioned that these seats were chopped up and customized exactly like the boys from the late 40′s did to fit these seats in their roadsters.  Man this car oozes traditional style.

You can see in this picture below that the seats are too wide as is.  So, what do hot rodders do?  They get out the cutting torch or saw and welder and their buddies shoulder (no joke) to bend and shape the seats.  What?  Is this guy for real?!

Here you can see the old bomber seats are chopped up and will be welded back together and painted army green.

Here’s one more shot of Tano and his boy Joe.  Man!  Joe is gonna have some awesome memories!

I asked Tano when did he first become interested in American hot rods.  He said since Kindergarten or about 6 years old.

Here’s a shot taken back when the ’26 T was a work in progress.  Reminds me of Larry Volks garage, don’t you think?  Love those roadster bodies!  The frame was hand built by Tano and friends as well.

Tano and his friends are members of the “IGKNIGHTERS” club.  He’s not only a member, but he named the club and designed the club plaque.  The plaque even looks a lot like the plaques of US clubs like the Gear Grinders or Sidewinders.

Geez, I was so into Tano’s story, I almost forgot the specs:

Motor : 1956 Oldsmobile Rocket 324 SP
Carb : Stromberg 97  Tranny : Muncie 4 speed WWII P-38 Chopped Seat
1950s Aluminum Merlene Steering wheel

Front end : 42～48 Wishbone 40 Spindle 40 Drum Brakes  Model-A Leaf  Hanger  32～34 Dog bone
Rear end :  42～48 Banjo  Curtiss Hanger

Here’s some kind words from Tano’s friend Dave.

“I crossed paths first with a gent named Yoshio Nakazawa, who bumped into pics of my rail on the internet and contacted me.  He is a fanatic for mid-60′s AFX Falcons in general and the ones of Hubert Platt and Phil Bonner in particular.  Just so happened that I know them both so was able to put him in personal contact with both men… which gave him a completely wrong picture of my importance (I ain’t!) in the general scheme of things.  He gave my contact info to Kiyoshi Tanomura (call him ‘Tano’) and we went on from there.  One thing that amazes me is that these guys have huge, HUGE obstacles in their way… and they are touchingly concerned that we won’t consider them ‘real’ hotrodders!  I’ve told them both any number of times that they may be the only REAL hotrodders left.  As far as actually helping, I did very little that I can recall… buying some things for Tano that he couldn’t get here and shipping them to him.  I did put him in touch with Tony Lombardi, a wizard engine builder nearby and an Olds specialist who hand-made a lot of drive train parts for him.  In fact, I made out well on that deal anyway, because I came up with several new friends, including Tony, that I otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

It doesn’t matter where you live, if you have hot rodding in your blood like Tano does and the right friends like Dave and Tony, you can build a traditional hot rod.

Any other readers from Japan or other parts of the world who want to share your hot rod car culture experiences with us?  We want to hear about it.  Please comment below or email me at moc.emsiedirymnull@deepsthceh so we can share your story!

Hechtspeed

Hot Rod Fixed- It’s about time!

You don’t have to look that closely to see the dust piling up. My friends never let me forget what I already know. That ain’t right.

Good news is,  MyRideisMe.com is growing, but it’s at a cost to why I made it: The fun of driving and working on cars. No regrets, but just the same, I’m glad to have Bonnie, my 1927 Ford Roadster back on the road. So what was wrong?

• General laziness
  • Get out there son!
• Stripped out threads for 1 header bolt
  • I’ve never done a Heli-coil before

Sounds even more pathetic when I write it down.

Backing up some… A friend had a gift certificate for ceramic header coating that he couldn’t use, so knowing I’m a fellow car dude, he offered it to me. I needed to do something! If you’ve been following the build/update progress of my roadster for a while, you saw this post (Click to read it):

Home-built Header finish-ATF!

After applying the ATF (and after the smoke cleared…) the header was an amazingly cool gray-blue. I loved it and you couldn’t beat the cost! It looked pretty good for a while but after just a touch of rain, it needed another coating. Before long, the cool color turned to mostly a dull black. Perfect for Bonnie, but it never looked “coated” again. Enter 2009 Speed Week and my joyous rides on the salt.

Totally Happy:

Compared to: Weathered and Sad – Salt is bad for untreated metal.  Ya think? Compare that to what it looked like when it was new.

Since I’ll be back on the salt this year, I needed to do something with my header, so the timing of the freebie ceramic coating was great. When I removed the header, I found one of the header bolts just over finger loose and it wouldn’t tighten back up. Crap. I knew about Heli-coils, but I’d never used one. For some reason I used that as an excuse to put it off for WAY too long.

I thought about writing a tech piece on how to do a Heli-coil, but I found a couple easy to follow videos on youtube that I couldn’t improve on. Simply, you just drill a hole, tap it with a special tap, screw in the Heli-coil and you’re done! I had to grind off a tiny bit of the coil because it sat above flush with the head. Two seconds with a grinder and that was done. It all worked great and was way easier than I thought.

The new header’s in the top picture. I asked for flat black and the only black they had was this semi-gloss that has a funky yellow or gold-like tint to it. It’s almost like a yellow pearl in the black. I hope that burns off. Can you see it?

To cap things off with some tech, if you’ve ever tried tightening header bolts. It can suck.  Grab 2 or 3 wrenches of the size you need:

These wrenches aren’t a great example, but most times, the open ends will have a slightly different angle. When you’re to a point where you can only turn one flat of the bolt at a time, flip the wrench over and try again. If that doesn’t work, use a different wrench. That couple degrees of angle change on the head may be all you need to nudge the bolt over and grab it with the another wrench. Rinse and repeat.

A pretty simple tip, but if it weren’t for my dad teaching me, I wouldn’t think of that. Also, as I discussed with some other members, there’s alot more novices out there than experts. All are welcome here! If you’re an expert, let us know! Tech tips are a priority for the future of my weekend hot rodding killer… MyRideisMe.com.  Sign up and join us…

1929 Roadster Part 1: A Long Time Coming

Salt Flats Tribute Car:

Boy do we have a treat for you guys?  I’ve wanted to do a “work in progress” story on Larry Volk’s street roadster since I found out about it earlier this year.  It’s finally progressed to a point where there’s good progress  showing.  The Volk garage is part hot rod time warp, part skill and craftsmanship, and part inspiration.

We’ll get to the 1929 Ford Model A Roadster project car in a second.  First, let’s talk time warp.  Larry and his family have been into racing and hot rods since the early 1950′s.  He started out drag racing  and dirt sprint car racing.  His race buddy Terry Nish invited him out to the Salt Flats in the late 1950′s/early 60′s and that was it for Larry.  He’s gone every year since (unless it was rained out) and his life has become engulfed in the Salt.  Currently Larry is in his second stint as President of the 200 MPH Club, Chairman of the Save the Salt Committee and current holder of the SCTA Bob Higbee Award given out at the Opening Ceremonies of Speed Week 2009.

With all this and more, Larry’s garage is a museum of sorts for the last 40 some-odd years of Bonneville Salt Flats racing history.  There are stickers, pins, plaques, posters, broken parts and trophies that adorn the garage and his living room.  Then there’s the hot rod parts collection Larry’s been wheeling-and-dealing for during the last few decades.  They’re all just for this car.  The ’29 roadster Larry’s been dreaming up will be a traditional hot rod build, of course.

Part skill and craftsmanship?  Ok, so the car is not done yet.  But, there’s plenty of work already done showing Larry’s attention to detail and well thought out passion.  Even though I’m calling this story Part 1, it’s really more like Part 5,924.   You see, Larry is and has been carefully and skillfully putting together this game plan.  Larry’s roadster is to be his version of the perfect traditional hot rod.  A hot rod that would have been right at home 50-60 years ago, using the hot rod parts of the day, the newest Hemi engine, with newer Ford 3 speed transmission, higher performing carbs, etc.  Larry dreams of cruising the streets of Davis County Utah, taking the grandkiddies for spins in the rumble seat or maybe letting his “2 Club” kids drive it? And of course, he’ll take it to Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats.  As Chairman of the Save the Salt Committee, Larry takes a bunch of trips out to Bonneville to check the salt conditions and report back to other hot rodders. Around Speed Week and the World Finals, there’s alot of folks waiting to know, “Is the Salt OK? Is it wet? Does it look fast?”  It’s a pretty boring 2 hour drive out to the Salt, found  west of Salt Lake City, so this dream rod will make the trip all worthwhile.  Can I ride shotgun?! Ha Ha

The goal is clear, build a traditional 1940′s to 1950′s-era Model A street roadster.  The key ingredient to this soon to be road worthy hot rod is the 1955 Chrysler Hemi, which was actually used on the Volk Bros’ 1929 roadster land speed racing car (no records, but Dallas was running 220+ in the 2 1/4 when he felt it hiccup, so he hit the engine shut off switch, saving the block, but too late for the pistions). According to its ID # and “W” cast into the side of the block (see the “W” in the pic?).  Larry tells me that its a 1955 ”Spitfire” 301 cu in Polyspherical Hemi engine used on the 1955 Chrysler Windsor.  It was Chrysler/Plymouth’s way to more economically take advantage of the Hemi engine design to compete with Ford and Chevy’s small V8′s, where before Chrysler had used its big displacement 6 cylinder.  The Poly engine used a single valve rocker and a valve angle that was more straight up and down.  Not quite the performance of the double rocker, full hemispherical engine, but great bottom to mid range torque, less weight, faster manufacturing and cheaper cost.  According to my research on allpar.com, the ’55 301 cu in Poly Hemi was a one year engine.  In 1956, Chrysler went to a 331 cu in Poly Hemi.  But, of course, in traditional hot rodding fashion, the “Poly” heads got replaced with higher performing, newer design full Hemisperhical heads for Larry’s hot rod.  This Hemi screams traditional hot rodding more than any other engine!

At this stage of the build, Larry mocked up this sa-weet Hillborn Mechanical Fuel Injection setup.  When asked, Larry’d prefer to run 3 Stromberg 97′s atop this beauty since mechanical injectors are a bit finicky and it’s no fun to carry a primer bottle when running a street roadster like what Larry’s got in mind.

The body is of course steel made by Brookville Roadster.  Color will likely be some hue of black, either a satin or gloss finish, he’s not sure yet. He just knows it needs to be black, like a true hot rod should be.  Larry worked years ago doing body work and has a friend with a paint booth, so he’d like to do the body work himself.

The frame rails are vintage 1932 Ford steel.  The ’32 crossmember is also from Ford and is a sought after gem cherished by traditional hot rodders.  The frame’s boxed for strength in the front section only to be able to harness the Hemi’s weight and tendency to wanna twist the rails.

Out back, you see the Halibrand ID # 178 quick change rear end (will likely run a 3.05 final drive ratio).  Larry said this rear end is another classic component that is probably worth upwards of $5,000 to other traditionalists in today’s market.  As you’d expect, Big Lar’ didn’t pay quite that much back in the day when he picked it up.

Wheels are Kelsey Hayes 16″ wires and tires will likely be early style dirt tracks, either Coker or Firestone.

Continuing with the project details; taillights are blue-dot 1950 Pontiac, the transmission is a 1939 Ford 3 speed manual, and brakes are also 1939 Ford, which would have been period correct for the 50′s.  It just wouldn’t be right to throw a 5 speed and disc brakes at this roadster.

This brings me to the final part, Inspiration:
I simply can’t imagine what it must be like to save and plan and collect parts for 30+ years.  Sure, some of that wait is by choice as Larry’s happily spent time and money raising his family and racing at Bonneville but, some of that wait is just part of this hobby we call hot rodding.  The bench-racing, planning, parts collection and eventually cruising the finished rod are all part of the fun.

Can’t wait to see this car progress to its final stages and cruise to the Salt and local car shows.  Future posts about this hot rod’s progress are coming. Count on it.  Thanks Larry and Dallas for sharing your passion.  See you on the Salt!

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