Goodguy's Hot Rod & Custom Car Show

Last Saturday I made it out to Goodguy's Hot Rod & Custom Car Show at the Orange County, California fairgrounds.

For the most part it was your typical hot rod car show. There was the "show & shine," featuring a wide variety of American muscle cars and trucks, some in crisp showroom condition, others modified to an extreme. A rockabilly band played, and there was a swap meet in case you're still looking for motor mounts for your '71 Charger Super Bee. A bunch of aftermarket vendors had convention style displays. Edelbrock's stood out since they had actual physical parts to look at and fiddle with. Chip Foose was there with his daughter, driving around in his Hemisfear.


This show had the highest proportion of kids in rockabilly getups, and rat rods on display, of any show in recent memory. Maybe it's Orange County, or maybe that stuff is picking up steam.

The highlight of the show was definitely the autocross. It seemed to be open to anyone who wanted to participate, and the participants were all manner of wild street rides. About half the cars were spare-no-expense Camaros and Chevelles; other notables were a couple hairbrained rat rods, an honest-to-goodness Ford GT, a Z06, an 80s C/K pickup truck from Car Craft magazine, and a Jaguar XJ with a Chevy 502 big block swapped in.


What can I say? Top three impressions:

1. Reading, thinking, and talking about cars is great and all, but there's no replacement for seeing them actually tear around a track. Driving around a track is even better.
   
2. In autocross skill is at least as important as hardware. The fastest cars on Saturday were definitely not the fastest cars on paper.
3. Why was every single hot rod a Chevrolet? It would have been nice to see a classic Ford, Mopar, or even non-Chevrolet GM make a showing.

If you have the opportunity to attend a show like this, by all means do. It really gets the juices flowing.