Kit Car Show - Happily Tied Up At Knott's

It's quite possible kit car enthusiasts are wrenching away somewhere every minute of the day in the U.S. But creativity does rest. That's when we dream up cool things to do with our cars to make them unique. But there's always someone who has to put together a few more parts before calling it quits for the day or night while the rest of us are dreaming of more horsepower or chrome. Somebody's just getting started on a project at the same time someone else is performing the finishing touches.

Often, builders work through the night to get their cars right for an upcoming event. Unlike street rod or musclecar shows, which occur several times a month throughout the year, there are a handful of noteworthy kit car events, and two that are the oldest and most prominent. The Association of Handcrafted Automobiles fields the longest-running replicar show on the West Coast. The two-day event is called AHA's Fun Under the Sun Show. Located in Buena Park within the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park compound in Southern California, the AHA Fun Under the Sun Show has now occurred on 28 occasions.

According to the AHA, the '07 event had the third largest number of registrants, 233, and the third highest total of participating vehicles, 219. Perhaps those 14 no-shows were builders who just couldn't get done in time, no matter how long or hard they worked. Let's thank them for making the effort, and let's hope we see their freshly completed projects soon. Admirably, seven cars still under construction did make it to the event. For those of us who have projects underway at shops or still in our garages, we appreciate the owners bringing their almost finished kits to show us we're not the only ones without drivers. It reminds us that building a car from the ground up, or from the roller stage, takes tenacity, talent, luck, skill, and money. We're encouraged to get our vehicles done before the Fun Under the Sun event rolls around next year.

The only thing we missed out on at Knott's was their famous fried chicken dinner on Saturday night. In '08, we hope to see you at the show and at dinner. Until then, feast your eyes on some of the cool kit cars we captured in our cameras and on these pages.