Back from Detroit Autorama

Well, my wife and I loaded up our youngest (along with all the "gear" it takes to take a 23-month old on an "over-nighter"), and headed north to the Detroit Autorama over the weekend. I was a little concerned about the weather. A huge storm was moving into the Midwest early Friday morning. When I got to school, we were already on a 2-hr early dismissal for the day. By 11:00, the snow had already been falling, and I had received a phone call from the superintendent telling me that he had called the bus drivers and we would be sending the kids home even earlier @ noon.

In a way, this was good news for me. I could get home and we could leave for Detroit a little earlier than I had anticipated. Hopefully, we could get ahead of the storm.

We didn't have any trouble on the drive north. In fact, the storm tracked across Indiana and Ohio with Muncie, Indiana being at the northern edge. We arrived in Detroit at about 7:30 pm Friday evening. Once we unloaded, we relaxed by hitting the hotel pool and hot tub. (Both my wife and the little guy love the water!)

The next morning, we awoke to some snow falling in Detroit. We got ready and went down to the hotel restaurant for a buffet breakfast. The hotel lobby and restaurant were filled with people who were obviously heading to the show. Lots of 'gearhead' tee-shirts and car club jackets. I love talking to other car guys, and struck up a conversation with a guy while waiting for my omelet. The guy told me he was from Ottawa, Canada. He had come down with a bunch of folks on a "bus package deal". They were all excited about getting to the show after breakfast.

Well...to make a long story short. We finished our breakfast (the omelet and waffle were outstanding!), and decided to walk to the Cobo Center. Our hotel was only about 5 blocks up the street. Bottom line....the show was AWESOME! The main floor of the Cobo Center was filled with vendors and what I like to call "Trailer Queens". Trailer Queens are High Dollar, High Maintenance vehicles that seldom see any road time....no rock chips or bug juice on these babies! These "show cars" spend their lives being pushed in and out of enclosed trailers traveling from event to even. Now don't get me wrong...these cars were INCREDIBLE (as I hope you will see from my photographs), however I was very anxious to see if the stories I've read about the Cobo Center "basement" were true.

View of the snow, traffic, and Cobo Center as we walked from our hotel.

We started in the center aisle of the main floor and worked our way through the left side. A "special shout-out" to the fine folks at Detroit Muscle for officially welcoming us! They were the first vendor that we visited. They were very welcoming, and spent time entertaining my 23-month old son. They gave him a Detroit Muscle decal for his stroller and a cool Detroit Muscle key chain light. We ended up buying a cool Detroit Muscle tee-shirt for him. (Unfortunately I asked for a 4T and didn't realize they gave us a Youth Medium until the next morning when I took it out of the bag to put it on him for the drive home.) Oh well...the boy will grow into it!




Again...overall, a very AWESOME day. After about a dozen photos, my camera batteries went south. At that point, I was thinking, "Man, I'm really glad I packed a couple extra packages of batteries." You can imagine my disgust then, when I opened both NEW packages of batteries and COULD NOT FIND TWO that had enough "juice" to allow me to take any more pictures. "Dagnabbit!", I screamed, "How am I going to take any pictures for my blog if I can't get any of these stinkin' batteries to work?!?!?!" Well, fortunately, I was able to get my hand stamped, go out into the lobby, and buy a couple of fresh batteries. (I had to pay a HUGE mark up...$3 bucks for 2 AA's), but I was able to get back into the show and take a BUNCH of pictures.

This 32 roadster had an interesting interior treatment. Sort of an American Indian motif with a snake skin insert on the door panel.

Well, I will be adding additional postings and pictures from the Detroit Autorama in the days ahead. All-in-all, I think I took about 85-90 photographs, hopefully you will enjoy them! (I'm having trouble uploading photographs this afternoon. I'll get more up in the next few days.)

1900 Views and Getting Better...

I am still amazed at the amount of traffic this site gets. It was only a week or so ago that I thought "Wow....1500 views!". This evening, the counter went over 1900!

I'd again like to thank all of those you have stopped by now and then. I'd especially like to thank those who have left comments and/or feedback during their visit. The coolest part about this whole blog thing is getting responses from readers. Whether it is an answer to a question, clarification on something I've written, or just a "kudo"... ol' Scruffy appreciates the comments! This blog has been a learning experience for me as I've shared my interest in automobiles with each of you.

Well, it was sad news this week hearing of the passing of Boyd Coddington. I loved him and hated him all at the same time. If you've read his bio, you know the guy started out working for Disneyland, building cars in his spare time. Over the years, he has certainly built some absolutely beautiful cars! I've spent some time at car shows drooling over sets of Boyd and Boyd Coddington billet wheels as well. The bad side of his contributions is the very reason I dropped my subscription to Street Rodder several years ago. It's also the reason I dislike "trailer queens". If you've picked up a Street Rodder lately, you know that the mag caters to guys who can afford the mega-dollar rides. Your average joe-blow grease monkey could never afford the stuff Boyd put out.

I guess the upside of Boyd's contributions to hotrodding was that he and others like him have caused a revival of the traditional, garage built hotrod. Cars built by average joes with all the means and creativity they can afford. Over the past few years, these are the types of cars that I've enjoyed seeing at cruise-ins and shows. For me, cars are meant to be enjoyed....and that means driven! (and it's even more fun when they have to be driven by "the seat of your pants"!)

So RIP Boyd. We will miss you. Thanks for your contributions to the hotrodding world. Thanks for bringing use into your business every week through American Hot Rodder. And thanks for sparking in many of use a revival of what hotrodding is really all about.

Miami Valley CTC

I went on a field trip with my oldest son today. We visited the Miami Valley CTC (career center). The MVCTC is located north of Dayton, Ohio. It is a large campus that contains several vocational trades. Students from many of the area high schools can attend the CTC during their junior and senior years of high school.

My son is a freshman this year. He is interested in the automotive technology, diesel mechanics, and aviation mechanics programs. He also found the machining trades of interest as well. This year's senior machine trades students made the two "choppers" above as one of their senior projects.

As we walked through the auto mechanics garage, I was delighted to see this old Ford waiting her turn.

This chevrolet was being prepped in the auto body area.

The Miami Valley CTC has some very impressive facitilies. Not only can students go there for automotive trades, they also have career courses in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, building trades, heavy machinery, agricultural trades, health services, design, and business, just to name a few.

Here is a shot of one of the bays in the diesel mechanics building.