Rod & Custom Show Heats Up

The America’s Most Beautiful Roadster Award is to hot rods what the Kentucky Derby is to horse racing, the America’s Cup to sailing or the Indy 500 to race cars--and Boyd Coddington has won it seven times.

Coddington is America’s foremost custom hot rod builder and he will be on hand this weekend with his own display at the Goodguys Spring Rod & Custom Nationals in Pomona.

Coddington and crew are also being drafted to do a “pros pick” of 16 cars (out of about 150 to 200). “We’ll look for the most quality, the most detailed,” says Coddington, who has built more than 300 cars as owner and operator of Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton.

Besides the more than 2,000 street rods and custom vehicles bringing mag wheels, fat fenders and hand-formed metals to the Fairplex this weekend, the mood and the music of the hot-rod era will also be present with help from Papa Doo Run Run (performing Sunday), a vintage National Hot Rod Assn. race car display, manufacturer and supplier booths, arts and crafts, a Harley-Davidson display and daily entertainment.

If you’ve never experienced a hot rod on the road, there’s the Budweiser Motorsports Pavilion’s state-of-the-art simulator/race car display. Coddington’s latest creation, a 1937 roadster hand-built from the ground up--”everything but the tires,”--will also be on view.

Hours are Saturday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. at Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. Admission $10; seniors, $8; children 7-15, $5. Parking at Gate 14, $4. (909) 623-3111.