Who do the Voodoo Hoodoo? I do!

The Voodoo Hoodoo is a fun, punk rod lifestyle-type event that draws in a wide variety of hot rods and customs. They had been holding it in Bowling Green, but this year brought it down to Tennessee Speed Sport in Goodlettsville. The show was originally meant for cars 1972 and older, but a last-minute rules addendum opened it up to just about anything. I like this location. Tennessee Speed Sport is a cool, old-school speed shop, and it fits this type of event. Also, the backdrop under the highway bridge gives the whole thing kind of a gritty city vibe that fits in with the cars and music they draw to this thing. You see some things you don’t normally see at this show. Here are a few of them.

Unusually beautiful weather at the Fall Redneck Rumble

Twice a year, the Wilson County Fairgrounds becomes the site of one of the most unusual car events in town. The Redneck Rumble combines elements of a car show, swap meet, motorcycle racing, camping, and a big, crazy party. Usually it seems to rain, making everything that much grittier. But this time, sunny skies and mild temperatures ruled the day. I’ve never seen so many people lined up to buy tickets for this. There were a ton of vendors, there were a ton of cars, and there were a ton of motorized vehicles, scooters, bikes, and ATVs recklessly bombing through every conceivable road and path. This is not your normal parking lot cruise-in. It’s a manic spectacle that crackles with life from every direction.

Red Boiling Springs Fall Meet celebrates 63rd-Anniversary

Last weekend, the Middle Tennessee Region AACA recognized the 63rd-Anniversary of their Fall Meet, which was held on the picturesque grounds Thomas House Hotel in Red Boiling Springs, Tenn. According to my calculator, that means the first one was in 1956. That’s even older than this Chevy Viking 60 Howe-bodied fire truck, which was bought new by Red Boiling Springs Volunteer Fire Department in 1959. Tradition runs deep here. Many of the club members have been attending this event for decades. Even the hotel has been here since 1927. All of this history is great news for show-goers. Organizers have been doing this long enough now that there aren’t too many hitches in the operation. This year, 328 vehicles showed up. That’s a successful effort in anybody’s book.

Fontanel Cruise packs a bunch of cars in at Barbara Mandrell's old place

The big car event in Nashville last Thursday night was the weekly cruise at the Fontanel Mansion. Like most of these places, I had never been there before, and didn’t really know what to expect. What I found was one of the coolest places to have a car event I’ve been to in a long time. The Fontanel was originally Barbara Mandrel’s 27,000 square-foot log home, but now it’s used for private events. There are zip lines, restaurants, an amphitheatre, the world’s only Goo Goo Clusters store, and much more. And everything is surrounded by rolling hills, lush grass, and green trees. It’s really pretty out there.

Spring Hill High School Car Show brings beautiful cars to Saturn country

For most people, Spring Hill, Tenn., is famous for one car—Saturn. Back in the day, the state-of-the-art assembly plant in Spring Hill cranked out hundreds of thousands of these plastic-paneled eco-mobiles to what was at the time a rabid fan base. There were people out there who loved these cars. They loved the no-haggle pricing strategy. They lovd being part of the Saturn family. Don’t believe it? Back in the 1990s, as many as 50,000 Saturn owners and lovers would converge on Spring Hill for the annual Saturn Homecoming shows.

Wrecked old cars and crashes

Most of the new cars I have been reviewing lately are so loaded with safety features, you wonder how anyone can crash them at all.  I mean, with lane departure warning systems, traction control, backup cameras, and crash mitigation braking systems, what excuse do you have for running into another car?  And yet, we still manage to do it.  They don’t keep running those traffic reports on the news for nothing.  This is nothing new, though.  Take the old cars in these pictures.  They were equipped with nasty biased-ply tires, fail-prone drum brakes, and lethargic manual steering.  These weren’t the pampered classics we see at car shows today.  People drove these cars, and sometimes, they wrecked them.

Quality is the key at Wagner's Classic Cars

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to check out the inventory at Wagner’s Classic Cars in Bonner Springs.  I really like going there, because they have some of the nicest cars around.  But I held the story back so I could present it when I had fewer car shows to write about.  But believe me, this place is as good as any car show.  Let’s take a look at some of the exceptional cars that were on hand during our visit.

Someone killed the messenger. So long, Mercury

2011 was a rough year for a number of iconic automotive brands. Some of them aren’t a huge loss from a historic standpoint, i.e., Saturn and Hummer, but a couple of them will truly be missed. Particularly, I’m talking about Pontiac, and the subject of this article, Mercury.

From luxury and performance cars, to auto racing, to legendary customs, the Mercury brand has been a significant part of the American automotive landscape.  In mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.  Here, we take a look back at the history of Mercury, and the end of the once popular nameplate.