Searching for car stuff at the First Fridays event in the West Bottoms

Do you like treasure hunting? Discovering that rare vintage car collectable can be pretty exciting, but traveling from antique store to junk shop can be expensive and time-consuming.

There is a trending pastime in Kansas City known as “First Fridays,” and more and more collectors are doing their shopping all in one place.

Most of this is happening on the first weekend of the month in Kansas City’s West Bottoms area. Primarily known in modern times for Halloween haunted houses, the historic landmark buildings are now homes for several antique and vintage clothing shops.

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet in Kansas City

You may have noticed that the MLB All-Star game is in Kansas City this week, and Chevrolet is a major sponsor. I’ve been seeing Suburbans with manufacturer tags and the full decal packages all over town over the last few days. Chevy is involved in a big way.

Of course, it makes sense, given the traditional tie in that Chevrolet has with baseball in general. And that has a lot to do with one of the most successful ad campaigns in history—Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.

Maker Faire at Kansas City's Union Station opened up your right brain

From near to far, from here to there, creative people are everywhere.

Car shows are great, and we go to them all the time to see what there is to see. But sometimes, it’s easy to forget that there are other places where fun and interesting automotive-related activity may be happening.

Take the other day. I was sitting around working on my sunburn at a car show, while the 2012 Maker Faire was taking place at Kansas City’s Union Station. I never would have even considered going to that, but luckily my wife Maria and BHo were on the case.

Renamed drivers and a re-bodied Cadillac in this week's Thursday Drive-By

Today’s Thursday Drive-By has some cool stuff, and a couple of self-serving links that are still cool.

We’ve got a bit of vintage racing, with a great story about undercover drivers from the Midwest Racing Archives. We’ve got a little automotive mayhem with a video compilation. There are some awesome old drag racing photos from the Jalopy Journal. And a famously hideous Cadillac returns to Le Mans.

I’m also including a couple of links from Dale Wilch’s Man Cave and Tallant’s Hot Rod Shop. These two get special treatment, because they are the first two paying sponsors ever on the Hover Motor Company blog. I am very proud that companies are starting to take notice, and very excited to have these folks on board. I’ve written stories about both of these businesses in the past, and am honored that they chose to take a chance with me here.

Parkville Fourth of July Parade. My vote goes to the cars!

Small town Fourth of July parades.  Blech.  Basically you just sit in the heat with a bunch of other sweaty people, and watch an endless stream of politicians pass out their junk mail.  Why does anyone want to go to these?

But then, every once in awhile, something shows up that makes it worthwhile.  Usually it's some sort of Veterans' salute, or maybe a moving color guard display.  And, if you can make it through the trailers full of dance and karate students, a neat car or truck will usually appear to break up the monotony. 

Amazing automotive assembly lines

Did you know that in 1985, a record 11-million cars and light trucks were sold in the United States? Today’s sales are about half that, but 5-to-6-million cars each year is still nothing to sneeze at. When I think about those kinds of numbers, it seems like a miracle to me that the world can build that many cars. I mean seriously, how is that even possible?

The North Kansas City Centennial Car Show was hot

Let's face it.  If you have a car show during one of the hottest days in the history of June, schedule it during the absolute hottest part of the day, and locate it in the middle of an un-shaded asphalt parking lot, you're not going to get much of a car count.

To wit: the Centennial Car Show hosted by the North Kansas City Rotary Club.  This thing was Saturday from noon to 4:00.  I almost can't think of a more miserable scenario.

Hover Motor Company milestones and shameless panhandling

This week, the Hover Motor Company blog hit a couple of pretty neat milestones. And while I do try and keep this sort of thing to a minimum, sometimes a guy just has to toot his own horn.

I posted the first car story here on August 18, 2010. The weekly car show calendar that went up on Tuesday marks the 400th story here on http://www.hovermotorco.com/. I can hardly believe that I can come up with one 400-word story sometimes, not much less 400 different stories!