For more than 40 years the L.A. Roadster Club (among the oldest rod clubs in the country) of Southern California has held an "Exhibition and Picnic" over Father's Day weekend in SoCal-originally at the famed Hollywood Bowl in Pasadena, but since 1980 at the L.A. County Fairplex in Pomona, California.
The idea was to showcase the club's finely built drivers (club rules dictate it must be a pre-'38 open car-including roadsters, convertibles, phaetons, and the like) and provide an area set aside for a swap meet. Over the years, as parts and pieces to build these cars have diminished, the swap-meet section has grown to mythic proportions.
Even the general parking area, set aside for coupes and post-'37 vehicles, was a car show unto itself, with nearly every example of hot rod parked next to each other. But the main focus has always been the roadsters, and this year nearly 800 of them crowded into the main parking lot, right next to hundreds of manufacturers and vendors who were busy selling products. Many combinations of car kits, from nearly complete to just frames-and-bodies, were offered in both 'glass and steel to those looking to build a car for themselves.
Those who have attended the event for years came away bewildered with the sheer size of it all, and those who were first-timers are probably still shaking! Every style of every type of rod could be found-it was all here in every shade and hue you could think of.
One of the main beneficiaries of the show is the City of Hope Hospital and Research Center in Duarte, California. This year the L.A. Roadsters raised $6,000 at the show, and will be presenting that money plus a check for $10,000 to the hospital. (That makes nearly $100,000 the club has raised over the years for the hospital!)
So if '30s-era roadsters are your thing, you owe it to yourself to check out the L.A. Roadsters' Father's Day show when it rolls around again in 2006. You won't go away sorry!