Roadsters on Exhibit in Pomona
Chances are that your father already has more socks, sweaters and ties than he knows what to do with, so for Father’s Day this year, why not get him something really special? Something like an all-day time-travel trip back to an era when life was simpler, values were more sharply defined and cars were stylish exercises in rolling art.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Roadster Club, such a gift is available this weekend at the L.A. County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The 25th annual Roadster Exhibition, Trade Show and Swap Meet is most certainly a mecca for the automotive faithful, with more than 1,300 cars of various vintages on display, along with new- and used-car parts of every size, shape and description.
Focus for Nostalgia
But it’s also a pleasant, daylong walk down a chrome-plated, hand-polished memory lane lined with the machineries of decades ago.
“In addition to providing a focus for your nostalgic impulses, this is a must-see gathering for anyone to whom a car is more than just transportation,” says Lee Titus, one of the event organizers. “It started out as a show for pre-1937 roadsters and has evolved over the last 25 years into an interactive ‘happening’ for automotive enthusiasts. People come here to buy and sell, to trade tips and secrets and, for a weekend at least, turn the relatively solitary hobby of tinkering on some old car into a social occasion.”
Vintage-car enthusiasts will find 300 sleek prewar roadsters, all of them restored to their owner’s idea of perfection, and some of them bearing price tags approaching six figures.
One of the interesting trends emerging among roadster devotees is applying the currently popular “Euro-tech” look to early American cars to create high-tech hot rods that look like a minimalist sculpture executed in machined aluminum and mirror-smooth paint.
“The purists are horrified, but those of us with a little broader perspective view it as a completely logical evolution,” says Dennis Aase, owner of a custom-built, high-tech hot-rod coupe. “It takes an expert craftsman with a designer’s eye to create just the right look, but when they achieve it, the resulting vehicle can be worth between $75,000 and $100,000.”
If your tastes run to somewhat more recent classics, such as the shark-finned, chromed land yachts of the late 1950s and the high-powered “muscle cars” of the early 1960s, 25 car clubs will have more than 1,000 shining examples to help bring back those memories of high-school days and drive-in nights.
Should it be that the sight of all the gasoline-powered time machines completely overpowers the fiscal sense and you feel you absolutely must own one, a special area is provided for display of vehicles for sale. And for those whose automotive enthusiasm has already led to a project car sitting in the garage or driveway, the Roadster Show is both a swap meet and trade show. Featuring the automotive wares of more than 190 manufacturers, products include everything from reproduction parts and accessories to complete kits for building a classic roadster from the ground up.
Titus cites these kits, along with the number of young people coming into the hobby, as examples of the ongoing popularity of older cars. Kits let an enthusiast create a car of dreams without having to start with a rusty old hulk in a cornfield, like they did in the old days. But kits wouldn’t exist unless there was a market for them, and Titus observes that the people buying them are often younger aficionados who weren’t even born when those cars were in their heyday.
“Although this certainly is an event for enthusiasts of all ages, it’s for families also,” Titus says. “The group of 30 people who make up the Los Angeles Roadster Club, and all their wives and friends, work together like a family to put this event on. And the facilities at the fairgrounds include refreshment stands, permanent restrooms and shaded, grassy picnic areas, so that the entire family can come to the event and have a fun, comfortable day.”
And for those family members who don’t care about cars at all, Titus notes than many of the vendors at the swap meet sell non-automotive merchandise ranging from antique kitchen appliances to jukeboxes.
The 25th annual L.A. Roadster Exhibition, Trade Show and Swap Meet, Los Angeles County Fairgrounds today and Sunday. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tickets are $6. Children under the age of 12 are admitted free. All fathers will receive a complimentary 48-page show program. To reach the fairgrounds, take the Ganesha Boulevard off-ramp of Interstate 10 (San Bernardino Freeway) and follow the signs. Spectators enter through Gate 17 on McKinley Avenue. For further information, call (818) 795-5825.
