Of Rods and Rain

The annual Goodguys Columbus PPG Nationals is a short three hour trip from our Western PA. Home base and attracts thousands of the nations fines hot rods, customs and street machines. This year's edition was no exception as the Columbus Expo Center Fairgrounds (and surrounding hotel parking lots!) were packed with an outstanding collection of cars.
My girlfriend Linda and I arrived at our hotel about 10 miles north of the fairgrounds on Friday afternoon and unloaded my '23 T Roadster for the trip down I-71 to meet up with my good friend Gerry and her '51 Chevy Pickup and get our registration credentials. Later, as we all returned to the hotel complex we found hundreds of people lining the street, sipping on a cold beverage and watching the “cruise” as the cars ran up and down the street.
Saturday dawned warm but cloudy with a definite threat of rain. After some breakfast we headed to the show and found a nice place to park. Fortunately, we packed a cooler, pop-up canopy, chairs and my car cover in Gerry's truck (since T-Buckets have virtually no storage space)......because by 11:30 the “scattered showers” had turned into a steady rain. This didn't deter the spirit of the crowd or our determination to have a good time. We parked ourselves under the canopy and enjoyed a couple of beverages ourselves. Eventually Gerry's boyfriend, Dave arrived having ridden his motorcycle from Pittsburgh that morning (the last 70 miles in the rain). By this time we were getting a little damp and everyone was hungry......so we piled into the cab of the truck and set out in search of umbrellas and a decent place to eat. Meanwhile....the steady rain turned into a major monsoon complete with flood warnings. After waiting out the worst of it we returned to the fairgrounds to find the T still high and dry under it's tarp in the parking lot. So far, so good.
By now the rain had pretty much stopped, so we decided to attend the awards ceremony to see the “Street Machine of the Year” and “Street Rod of the Year” crowned. Western Pennsylvania was well represented in the Street machine finals by the guys at RPM out of Warrendale, PA with the '69 Trans am they built for Bryan Frank. In addition, Bill Steele's recently crowned “Hot Rod of the Year” 1930 Model A coupe was on hand for the crowd to admire.
The ride back to the hotel was a little damp as the rain started again (and can be a real adventure with the big rear tires on the T) but it subsided shortly after we got on the interstate and held off long enough for me to get the car back in the trailer.
Sunday was bright and sunny, so we headed to the fairgrounds for one final day of hot rod fun. Although the parking lot wasn't nearly as full as Friday or Saturday, there was still a nice crowd. We hung out for a while before getting ready for our ride home. All and all, it was a great time with great friends and lots of cool cars. Definitely a worthwhile trip!
Here's a shot of our cars on Sunday morning.

Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance

The final leg of our road trip took us to Jacksonville, FL for a stop at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. Despite getting a late start due to our "adventures in air travel" (See previous blog), we arrive at Amelia Island early in the afternoon and had a terrific time. The variety of outstanding automobiles was stunning, far too many to report on individually however, there were several that we took special note of. They included a beautiful, black Mercedes Gullwing, a terrific Duesenberg with curved side louvers, a sleek Lamborghini Miura and of course the show's main attraction, the "Phantom Corsair".

The weather for the day was perfect, it was warm and sunny with a slight breeze....a nice break from the remnants of the Pittsburgh winter.

The event seemed to be very well attended and well run with parking shuttles moving people about all day. Stay tuned, we'll be back with some more details and pictures from the trip. In the meantime, check out the photos of the cars mentioned above.

Indy Museum and the First Rail-Dragster

No car-guy (or gal) trip to Indianapolis would be complete without a trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a tour of the Speedway Museum, so on Saturday (3/14) we made our way over to the track and spent a couple of hours pouring over the collection of vintage race cars, motorcycles, and memorabilia.

We were particularly interested in the evolution of the various suspension configurations used over the years....truly some engineering marvels. We studied the various axle, spring, shock, torsion bar, brake and steering layouts. From all indications, the "modern" wishbone front suspension came into play around 1963 with the Lotus entries. Even though the '63 race was won by a straight axle roadster, the rear engine Lotus set the tone for years to come.

One of the more interesting race cars (although not a "500" racer), was this 1903 Premier Special. Designed and built for the first Vanderbilt Cup Race, this car weighed in at a whopping 2500 pounds...300 pounds over the weight limit. Despite drilling 470 holes in the frame, the car was still 120 pounds over the limit....no doubt due in large amount to it's 923 cu. in. air cooled engine (7 in. bore...6 in. stroke!!). None the less, driver Carl Fisher drove the car to a top speed of 59.21 Mph on the one mile dirt track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds!

Although drag racer Dick Kraft's "The Bug" car is generally heralded as the precursor to the modern rail dragster, I think the 1903 Premier Special may be able to make that claim as well.

Check back soon for our report on the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance.

Adventures in Air Travel

So what happens when two Auto Restoration guys head out across the country on business?....the answer is...Almost Anything.

Our trip from Pittsburgh to Indy (with a stopover in Cincy) was pretty uneventful. The car rental went fine and our hotel was decent.....so far so good. It's when we went from Indy to Jacksonville (initially via Cincy and Atlanta) that things went downhill. We checked our bags at the Indy ticket counter and proceeded through security with no problem but as we were putting our shoes back on at security, we heard our names announced over the PA. We though "this can't be good"...turns out we were wrong. The airline had found a way for us to avoid making the trip through Cincy and could put us on a direct flight to Atlanta. Cool.....so we waited. Then the flight was delayed....no problem, our flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville wasn't scheduled to take off until 10:45PM. We had plenty of time.
We arrived in Atlanta with a couple of hours to kill so we grabbed something to eat...then it was nearing time to board our flight to Jacksonville....except that there was another flight still sitting at the gate. Our flight was delayed...and it was packed. After much confusion at the gate, we finally got off the ground a little after midnight and landed in Jacksonville a bit after 1:00AM. We were told to go to baggage conveyor #1, which we did. Needless to say, our bags did not arrive. We were not alone, at least a dozen other travelers met the same fate. The airline gave us an "overnight kit" with a t-shirt and some toothpaste/shaving items and told us the bags would arrive sometime in the morning.
By now it's after 2:00AM....the rental car counters are closed so we have no rental car. Fortunately, our hotel was near the airport, so it was a short taxi ride to the hotel. Also fortunately, the hotel still had a room for us. By now, we were exhausted.
The next morning, we took a hotel shuttle back to the airport, picked up the rental car, met the plane with our luggage and managed to make it over to the Amelia Island Concours in plenty of time to see the show.
All in all, it could have been worse.
As it turned out, we ended up sharing our flight out of Jacksonville the next day with designer Chip Foose and NHRA driver "Fast Jack" Beckman. A few flight delays later and we were back in Pittsburgh. We got to the baggage area and waited while the bags came down the chute...ours weren't there. We then looked in a pile of bags that had arrived on earlier flights...lo and behold...our bags had beat us home. Another triumph for clean living!

HotRod and Restoration Show

Just a few thoughts from our recent trip to the Hot Rod and Restoration Trade Show....
First, the concensus of the folks in attendance seemed to be that the Hot Rod and Restoration Industry is holding up well despite the recent economic downturn. Although there is an awareness that the parts we sell or the cars we build/restore are bought with disgressionary dollars and are therefore not necessities for people.....they do help people define themselves...and that is something folks are willing to continue to invest in. Overall, that was good news to hear.
We spent all day Thursday attending various hour long seminars that started at 8:00Am and didn't complete until after 6:00Pm. The best seminar of the day was conducted by Brent VanDervort, owner of FatMan Fabrications out of Charlotte, NC. He gave an excellent talk on Hot Rod suspensions and steering, explaining how the different configrations worked and why.
On Friday we arrived early to attend the breakfast honoring "Speedy Bill" Smith, founder of Speedway Motors. It was a nice affair and paid homage to a true hot rodding pioneer. After breakfast roamed the convention center floor, stopping at as many vendor booths as we could. EVOD Wheels had a nice display of their new products....some really sharp looking wheels. Nordskog gauges had a really slick analog GPS drive speedometer that will fit nicely in any car and never needs calibrated. Fuel Air Spark Technology (FAST) had a nice self tuning EFI fuel injection unit and Brew City Engineering showed off their RediRad unit that allows an FM radio, CD or iPod to be played through the original AM radios found in older cars.
There was plenty of go-fast speed equipment. Roush Racing had several of their Ford engines on display. These are really nice but very costly.
Thursday evening there was a reception with sandwiches, Budweiser beer and the very cute "Bud Girls" who mingled with the crowd. All in all, it was a good show but we would have liked to see more seminars and vendors with products and information that is more geared to the Restoration side of the business. Still, we were glad we went. With any luck we'll be back again next year.

Next blog will be a recap of our trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

The best layed plans...

So, we had this really great idea that we would blog from the road during out "World Tour" to Indianapolis and Jacksonville. What we didn't count on was a technical gremlin with our laptop that would not allow us to connect to the internet (still working to fix it)....from what I can tell this "local only" connection thing on a Vista equipped laptop is not uncommon. Unfortunately, the various fixes I've found on the net haven't worked...yet.
Anyway, I was able to get one blog out using a computer in the hotel lobby but I was really hoping for more.
None the less, we will bring you various stories from our trip. By and large it was very good and we made the most of our time with the various performance parts manufactures, paint company reps, and other fabricators. We also managed to make a pilgrimage over the the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a tour of the Speedway's Museum prior to heading off to Jacksonville.
The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance was amazing collection of rare and exotic vehicles of all types. Truly a learning experience along with being a lot of fun. We were able to get some close up photographs of several Mercedes 300SL Gullwings that will help us as we complete the restoration of the two we are working on.
So....subsequent blogs will detail our experiences at the Trade Show as well as the Indy Museum and the Concours....along with our travel "adventures". We'll also include some pictures. So stay tuned.
We also plan to upload some additional pictures of our trip to our web site: www.hahnandwoodward.com over the next day or so....check them out.

Hot Rod and Restoration Trade Show

Hello from the road! We're in the Mecca of Motorsports, Indianapolis, Indiana to participate in the Hot Rod and Restoration Trade Show. The show has been pretty good and informative. We've attended several industry seminars and met a number of great people. The show is more geared (pardon the pun) toward the Hot Rod side of things, which is fine with us, because we build/own hot rods too, but we'd really like to see more stuff that addresses the Restoration side of things.
We've had a chance to meet and speak with several influential people in the industry including "Speedy Bill" Smith, who received the Peterson Publishing Lifetime Achievement Award, Barry Meguiar of TV's "Car Crazy", Art Morrison of Art Morrison Engineering, Nick Arias of Arias Pistons, Sam Memolo of TV's "Two Guys Garage" and Brent VanDervort of FatMan Fabrications along with dozens of not-so-famous people (like us).
All in all, we've learned a lot. Tomorrow, we have another morning seminar we're going to attend and then we hope to make a quick stop at the Indianapolis Speedway Museum....after that, it's off to Jacksonville for the Amelia Island Concours.
Check back soon, we hope to have some pictures to post and another report from the road.
Happy Motoring!

Ready for take-off

We're about to embark on our trip to Indianapolis for the Hot Rod and Restoration Trade Show followed by a short visit to Jacksonville, FL to stop by the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance...a.k.a. "Bill and Paul's Excellent Adventure". While it sounds like all fun and I know we are both looking forward to it, we expect to get a fair amount of serious work in during our trip. There are several business and industry specific seminars along with an opportunity for quality time with various manufacturers reps to discuss their latest products.
No doubt, there will be a lot of discussion about the economy and its impact on the Collector Car Hobby, Hot Rodding and the Automotive Restoration business in general. We're anxious to hear how others in the industry are doing.
The trip to the Amelia Island Concours will be an opportunity for us to get a sense of the current trends in terms of Collector's interests and preferences. We'll also have the opportunity to view some first class restorations. All in all, it should be an interesting and educational trip.
We plan to blog our thoughts an impressions while we're on the road....both the serious "business" stuff as well as the lighter side of our travel experience. It should be fun.
Check back soon......right now, we've got to start packing.

Hitting the Road

Spring is around the corner and it's time for those of us in the northeast to start to venture out. In this case, we're going on a road trip....most of which will take place by air!


Our first stop will to Indianapolis, IN. to attend the Hot Rod and Restoration Show. This is a three day event that is not open to the general public....sort of a mini-SEMA show. There will be a host of seminars on everything from best business practices to air ride suspensions and everything in between. There will also be a number of demonstrations of new products and an opportunity to talk with major industry vendors. Even in these difficult economic time, this is the kind of event you need attend to stay current and grow your business....so we're going!


After our three days in Indy, we'll be winging our way to sunny (we hope) Jacksonville, FL. to spend a day at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. One of the featured cars this year is the one off "Phantom Corsair" making a rare trip away from its home at the Harrah's Collection in Reno, NV. The car was originally commissioned by Rust Heinz, heir to the H. J. Heinz food empire.....and since we're Pittsburgh guys, that makes it even more special.


After Amelia Island, we'll be making our way back to Pittsburgh to review what we've seen and get ourselves ready for the onset of spring.....and car cruise season.



We're planning to blog from the road so check back and we'll keep you posted on how the trip is going. For more information about Hahn and Woodward Auto Restoration, check out our web site at http://www.hahnandwoodward.com/