My wife has been offered a job in Las Vegas..............and I assume we would move to Henderson or one of the towns outside of the city. Does anyone live nearby and what is the hot rod community like there. Are there good hot rod/engine/body shops in the area. I assume the weather is like were we live now............HOT!, but what about the winter, fall, and spring. Moving from California seems really nice right now, no State Tax, and I assume the housing market is like here, BAD! Any help would be appreciated.
I've been here 17 years, and the car community is pretty good, very diverse. There are a lot of classics, muscle, and hot rods (as well as tuners that I try to ignore). The economy sucks here right now, so if your wife gets a good job, that's great news. Homes are being given away compared to the prices a few years ago, so you might do real well in buying a house, as long as you don't lose your shirt on selling your current one. Weather here is what you'd expect... hot in the summer, nice springs & falls, winters rarely get to freezing. Figure on the 40's in winter. VERY little precipitation, but when it rains, 1/2" can cause a flood! (Nothing sinks in, so the low parts of the valley get 2 feet deep water when it rains!). There are a lot of car clubs, hot rod shops, and shows. Casual get-togethers every week-end often draw 200-300 cars. There are so many gold-chain hot rodders that the shops do well (doing work for others). But there a still a lot of real shade-tree builders in the community. Check out North Las Vegas, Clark County (unincorporated) as well as Henderson/Las Vegas. These are nice areas and have some car-friendly neighborhoods (try to avoid Home Owners Associations). Let me know when you're coming in... Looking forward to meeting you.
Vegas Paul Thanks for the invite. I would assume that within the next 2/3 weeks we would be making a weekend trip to take a look at the area. My wife has already been there and looked mostly at Henderson. I will certainly look into the area north of town as well. Give me a PM with your cell/phone number and before we make the trip I'll give you a call and maybe have lunch or something. It would be great to meet you. Thanks john
If you move to Vegas don't expect any sort of a traditional hot rod scene. It's all rat rods, muscle cars and billet shit. There are very few shows and the ones that do occur are generally awful. I worked with hot rods and other cars for three years in Vegas. I have no idea what Paul is talking about. Weekend morning meets at the Santa Fe parking lot don't attract hamb friendly stuff. Paul paints a deceiving picture of the Vegas car scene.
Hey, it is what it is... I'm not trying to paint any kind of picture here, just welcoming someone new to the town. It could be worse, and although rats, muscle and tuners dominate Las Vegas, there are also some serious builders and fans of hot rods. You've just got to look at the glass half-full! I wasn't trying to indicate that this is the perfect hot rod town (it's not!), but it sounds like John is moving here, and that's one more step to making it a better place...
If your hot rod has black/yellow CA plates, hold on to them along with your CA registration, "just in case". Meaning if you ever come back to CA, you can assign your black plates back on your car. Good luck in Vegas.
Traditional hot rods...not much. Like most places, you will find a small group of like minded folks and hang with them. The Las Vegas area has a wide diversity of car folks, but traditional is probably low on the list. Ive lived in the area for 57 years so if you want any insights from an old timer drop me a PM. Depending upon where your wife and you get jobs you would probably want to look at housing at least in that general area. The commute from one side of town to the other can be a pain. The Henderson side of the valley is a bit less hectic, especially if you stay towards the old side of Henderson, the Green Valley/Anthem area is pretty congested. Housing prices are WAY down. Get a realtor the lives/works in the portion of town you are interested in, a bit more personalized service. If you are looking in the easternside of Henderson I can recomend some good homegrown realtors and even an excellent mortgage broker, my sister. Lots of good priced homes right now, think we had the top 5 zip codes for bankruptcies in the nation If you want to get out of the hustle of the Vegas valley, look at Boulder City; small town, no gambling, higher home prices, tho a bit removed from the Vegas scene...it's where I live. PM me if you want. Bill
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that replied, and BigDogBoss, I will hold onto my original Yellow/Black 31 plates and registration...........................but not sure I would come back to California until they get their act together again.............................the one thing I really liked about NV was their roads................compared to California roads, NV's makes ours look like "wagon trails". I have lived and worked from Seattle to San Diego, and every place has its pro's an con's, so..................................we will see. IMHO
Leaving California was a very good move for me. Boulder City is a great place to live !!! Welcome to the area!
I've lived in the area since 1987 and find that theres more that goes on around here than you think. Andrew,( Brudnick) I see accually more Rat Rod stuff around lately than anything else.Of course I work on Las Vegas Blvd. too! I think the popularity here is pretty good and on the upswing more and more. I bought some Yblock stuff from you a while back. I think you'll like the move here, usually theres stuff going on all the time but not as much in the Heat of the summer. Super Run in downtown Henderson is in the end of September, one of the bigger events around here. Michael
what the brudwich states is true.. the car scene here is eh at best. the morning meet at the santa fe was gettting to be decent before it was moved to the santa fe. then it turned into 280zs with sbc stuffed into them and 87 camaros.. with a few hot rods stuffed in.
When you go to any kind of a show/cruise your going to get some kind of a mix of things here always. We're pretty Lucky to have Viva here and other Rod events from time to time. The Santa Fe Sunday morning thing is starting to attrach a lot of the newer and rice burner stuff like you were saying.I don't think they could limit it to certain years at this point, it would nice if they could. Thats pretty much why things cooled off at the Delinquent Doughnuts run at Trop and Mt. Vista. Started out as a group of nice older cars and Rods and pretty soon you had the Corvette club, the Mustang club blocking off a huge spot for their guys and everybody else was SOL. Wish Hogs & Heifers would start up their Cruise nights again they were great. But they said the business just wasn't there for it. Hope they try it again soon. Michael
Welcome to Vegas. Been there since 1985. I scene is ok. I mix from different crowds and different car events to keep it fresh. Summer sucks, nothing goes on and if it does someone is trying to do a car show in july during the day when its 112 outside. I love in Southern Highlands, its on the SW end of town.
Good luck in Vegas it sucks out here, been here for over 10 years. I will be moving back to California hopefully by this year. The last car show we had was probably Mopar's on the strip and that was months ago. We had a rockabilly rod reunion but that ended. So basically we just have one good car show and that's for Viva weekend. And the weather sucks ass out here, who the hell wants to work on their car when its 110- 115 in the summer. Then winter get pretty cold sometimes we had a couple inches of snow last december. If I were you I would stay up in Northern Cali is a lot nicer than this hell hole!
I've been in vegas for 18 years. Just like everywhere else, it's what you make of it. As far as housing goes I am closing on a house now 2000 sq ft on 3/4 of an acre for $225,000. I like the northwest side of town. It's away from the hustle and bustle and about five degrees cooler than the valley. If you need help getting settled pm me and I'll try to help. Monte
Chopped Coupe, same here, if you have any questions or need some advice send me a PM be more than Happy to help. Michael
yup good deals on new houses just bought one 15 miles from the lake love it lots of houses for sale my tract was gonna be around 800 homes i think there are about 80 cept i should have got a three car garage......oh yea be aware of the pig farm when buying a house ..............................
I have been here for 4 years now and I love it. Yes, it's hot in the summer but I have air in my garage. It's not Paradise but it sure as hell beets California. The only thing I miss about California is the Car Swapmeets, but Pomona is about 3 hours away.
We moved here a little over a year ago from La Mirada area by Knotts Berry Farm to the black mountain area of Henderson. Great home, great price, and enough car activity to keep you happy. Yeah, it gets hot, still working out in the garage and enjoying it. I'll PM you with a number if you want to get in touch.. Ken (aka '22)
Scratch that, its off. See my new thread... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=395119
John, As everyone else has said, like with any town, it's what you make of it. I have been here 12 years. There are good people and bad people. There are good cars and bad cars. Yes Vegas is muscle car dominated and there are a ton of shortly driven high dollar street rods. We also have our fill of rat rods and people that build just for shock value sake. There are good shops and a ton of private shops and back yard builders which is what I think makes it so great. There is a lot to this town that is not so public and a lot of the great cars are owned and built by people who don't care to go out and hit the scene. I don't disagree with VegasPaul. But if your strictly looking for H.A.M.B. friendly action then , yeah it's not gonna float your boat every time. As far as the housing goes, its flooded. best time to buy in our history. Hell I even know of some great rentals untill you get settled in! hint hint! If you come to town look us up.
We've been in Vegas for twenty years. It's a great place to live. Negative thinking people are always the first to respond. Life is what you make it. Vegas rules. Friendly people if you're friendly. Always something to do. Weather here is great, just hot as hell in July and August. That's what they made air conditioning for.
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