68th Annual Grand National Roadster Show Report

[Dave Smith]

I travelled out west to attend the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, CA. The Factory Five crew was mostly unavailable following the previous week’s Barrett-Jackson Show, so I asked some customers to help with our booth. The 3-day show had beautiful weather, sunny and mild with good crowds every day.

Here’s the report from the show.

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The Grand National Roadster Show is all about hot rods so we brought a ton of them. Our demo flame car was joined by our all-new, all-steel ’33 that had been built the previous week at the Barrett-Jackson show. Two Factory Five customer Hot Rods also joined our display.

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Factory Five customers (left to right): Doug Deffenbach, Karen Salvaggio, and Frank Maslowski helped kick off day 1.

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We also unloaded a Mk4 Roadster and our Mk4 half-mobile.

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Customer Bob Warren’s multiple show-winning Hot Rod coupe.

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Steve Temple and Scott Bell, a.k.a. Honey Badger drove the all-steel ’33 around the show on Sunday.

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Factory Five customer Frank Maslowski worked the booth all three days and talked to hundreds of people about our Mk4 Cobra replicas. Frank has built a ton of these cars and drives a Mk3 of his own.

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Factory Five Hot Rods left a big footprint at the show. Left: Blue Hot Rod of customer Randy Caudill joins the two factory cars.

[Dave Smith]

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Southern California has had record rain the past month. The nice weather brought out the crowds.

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Jo Coddington joined our booth for part of the day on Saturday and I was invited to join the Coddington family at the Hall of Fame luncheon at the show.

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Each year, the Grand National Roadster Show gathers the nicest rods anywhere. The sheer number AND quality of the cars at this show is remarkable. One of my favorites was this custom tow truck that came all the way out from Connecticut to make the show!

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Left to Right: Factory Five customers Grant and Dave Hodgkins, Frank Maslowski, and magazine writer Steve Temple.

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Tri-Five Chevys were everywhere. There was an entire building dedicated to them!

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This is one of those shows where you actually have pity for the judges. There are so many beautiful and well built cars.

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[Dave Smith]

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I’m a big fan of surf wagons, Nomads, and Woodies. There were tons of each at the show.

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From period-correct cars to off-the-wall customs, the Grand National Roadster Show has everything!

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[Dave Smith]

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The paint on this 50 Merc was even better in person!

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Scott “Honey Badger” Bell with Hot Rod owner Bob Warren.

Special thanks to all of the Factory Five customers who helped out during the show: Erik Hansen, Jeff Miller, Dave and Grant Hodgkins, Frank and Julie (thanks for the sandwiches!) Maslowski, Doug Deffenbach, Karen Salvaggio, Bob Warren, and Randy Caudill and his family.

The day after the Grand National Roadster Show, I headed out to the high desert with the Factory Five rig to do some magazine testing and photo shoots. All in all, it was a long five days on the road filled with some of the best cars on the planet. Long road trip, but a heck of a job!

[myjones]

Dave
I'm loving the patina job on the all steel 33.
Tell us your plan for the power tour this year?
DB
7liter Hemi 33

[i.e.427]

Dave. Thank You so much for inviting us to work the show with you this past weekend. I think I can speak for all of us saying we're ready for next year's show already. I don't know about the rest of our crew out there but by Monday my voice was shot. I didn't keep track of all of the folks I talked to out at the show but I can tell you that all three days there were hundreds of people walking through our booth. I could have done with out the Nitro car across from us being started multiple times each day but............Take care and see you in a few months at Huntington Beach.

Frank