Sunday, September 1, 2013

Greaserama 2013

The Greaserama is one of the most interesting car shows of the year.  Now, you aren’t going to see too many high-dollar show cars (although there are a few).  Some of the things there are downright scary.  But that’s actually what many of these owners are going for.  This event oozes personality.  Look for rust.  Look for tattoos.  But most of all, look for fun; because that’s the point of this show.  This year, the event was moved from the old Boulevard Drive-In location to the Platte County Fairgrounds.  Some people were concerned with that.  But they didn’t need to be.  I think this was the best Greaserama the Los Punk Rods Car Club has ever hosted.

Some of the big stars of the show were actually housed in one of the fairground buildings.  Among them was Jack Walker’s Hirohata Mercury recreation.  The original version of this “Kustom” ’51 was built by George and Sam Barris in 1952.  When I first started looking at my dad’s old car magazines when I was a kid, I fell in love with this car.  I will go as far as to say that I believe it is the single greatest customized car ever built.  This clone is a local car from Belton.  And it is beautiful.  I could go to a car show that only had this car, and be perfectly happy.

Another one of my favorites is this ’58 Impala coupe.  I think this is the quintessential customized ’58.  From the pearl white paint, to the red-striped gold scallops, to the red tuck-and-roll vinyl, every detail is perfection.  How should you modify the grille in one of these?  Refer to this car.  How do you set ’59 Cadillac taillights into one of these?  Check it out.  Tires and wheels?  Lakes pipes?  Louvers?  Here you go.  If you like authentic customs, you have to love this one.

I’m also a big fan of cars that were built “back in the day” and still survive today.  Such is the case with this Model A hot rod.  The owner built this car in 1963, and other than the recent addition of disc brakes, it remains unchanged to this day.  It has everything you would expect.  Things like three Strombergs on an Offy intake.  State-of-the-art (for the time) Thunderbird wire wheels.  ’32 radiator shell, nerf bars, and rear cut-down fenders.  And the red and white upholstery carried from the interior into the rumble seat. 

My dad’s favorite car wasn’t customized at all.  It was this white-over-red ’62 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.  Don’t let the “Sedan” part of the name confuse you.  These were actually four-door hardtops.  This particular example only showed about 22,000 miles on the odometer, and it looked very much like that was correct.  I have never seen 50-year-old leather in such nice condition in my entire life.  This car was an absolute time capsule.  And Cadillac was on top of their game in the styling department in 1962.  It’s not hard to see why dad chose this one.

This ’36 Ford was a real standout as well. It was a mild custom that would have been typical to the late 1940s, except it’s probably nicer than most of them were back then.  It was all about stance, that hopped-up Flathead, and a luscious, Ferrari-like leather interior.  I wasn’t sure about the hubcaps, but I think they’re rare, aftermarket Lyon caps that were made for customs like this.  This was a slick car from one end to the other.

One thing I like about this show is that my truck actually fits in.  By that I mean, not all of them are perfect, and that’s perfectly acceptable.  If you look at this picture closely, you can see a big crowd of people across the road ahead of my truck.  That’s because they’re all gathered around the “Farm Truck,” which is a well-known ’70 Chevy long bed that has been all over TV and the Internet.  It used to be a sleeper, because it looks like a scruffy old farm truck, but it’ll do a quarter mile in about ten seconds.  Of course it’s so well-known now, I don’t think you could call it a sleeper anymore.

I took so many pictures at the 2013 Greaserama, I decided to break up the slideshow into two albums.  Click the links to see all the pictures.

Slideshow Part 1

Slideshow Part 2

11 comments:

  1. Went Saturday and was there for over 4 hours. Went through the entire grounds and saw 3 times as many cars than at the old drive-in they use to have the show at. Ten times better place, better atmosphere and all around general fun.

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  2. Looks like they were able to reverse the 'car show in a junkyard' trend they had going the last several years. Now I wish I'd gone.

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  3. I'm camping at Smithville Lake. I'm from Oakland CA and visit here weekly. While driving in Liberty yesterday,
    I saw "Grounds For Divorce" on MO-291 turning right, right past me. I almost had a heart attack. It was way cool to see a car I've seen right here actually being driven!

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  4. Yeah, that guy drives that car a lot. They actually had a car show at Smithville Lake this afternoon, so he might have been going to that.

    I appreciate everyone checking in!

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  5. Mr. C,

    Again outstanding pics ! CONGRATS to Greaserama and their staff
    for such a great smooth transition .........What a great venue.

    Don
    "Basehor Boys"

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  6. I'd never been to that show before but it was way bigger than I'd imagined. What a fun, fun show to go to - very few trailer queens, very little pretension and a whole lot of fun. The guys that ran it did a great job of handling parking/payment and I spent about 3 hours walking around too. And ended up buying a custom-painted '65 Mustang GT front fender as the very first piece of garage art for the garage in my new house!

    The only, miniscule nitpick I'd have is that it was really hard to find my way around the cars in any kind of orderly fashion. They were just kind of strewn about everywhere and it became hard to find your way around the mass of cars. But that's a tiny thing. Love that show and will be back next year!

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  7. Looks like a better venue than the dusty drive-in...looks like they had more true kustoms attend this year and a lot less "rat junk" (or at least you didn't shoot any pics of the "less than attractive four wheeled stuff".

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  8. When I heard Greaserama was moving out of the Boulevard to Platte County I almost cried. When I got there Saturday I was apprehensive about how good it was gonna be. After having a minor freak-out on how many cars were there that I was gonna have to photograph, I calmed down and realized that they were letting almost everything in and that it was gonna be the best Greaserama yet.

    It was. Went both days and thoroughly enjoyed it and all the extra cars that were there along with many more vendors and even food trucks.

    Los Punk Rods pulled it off and did a great job. Sad that Todd wasn't there to see it.

    Can't wait til next years Greaserama. It should be twice as good.

    Here's my what I got. http://www.flickr.com/photos/philmo/sets/72157635319824129/show

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  9. Thanks for taking a moment to capture my CE... Always a pleasure to look through your pics. Neal,

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  10. Great pictures as always Craig! Is it just me or is every other picture in the slide show small and sideways? Anywho, glad to see the rat rod fad fading out. Just never could get into the minimal effort show car.

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  11. These are beautiful pieces! Where was I when this was held? Goodness, it's even harder to pick a favorite among your featured cars. If I own one, I'll set a room for it, with glass window panels surrounding it. Nowadays it's not easy to find goodies like this, though there are options of upgrading what you already have.

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