Event Coverage LA Roadster Show with my Dad in a '40 Coupe

Happy Hunting Grounds
by Michelle M. Yiatras
Timechanic™​

Mike & “St. Nick” from high perspective CO posted one of the richest & most ingenuous threads to meander the HAMB, the real steel deal. The pics of Mike wrenching & his Dad snoozing are archetypal. I recognized so many sites along the 70 & 15 that I’ve traveled many miles with my Father, & David (also the 1, 5, 8, 10, 89, 95, 101, 160, endlessly…) “Josephine” is my paternal Grandmother’s name. My birthday happens on Father’s Day weekend each year so it’s tradition to go to Pomona, CA for the LARS in celebration. Barn Find T’s delightful thread served an epiphany for many fathers & sons that this is what family is about, what the car hobby is about, what the national countryside is about. It’s simple & affordable- just show up. It’s meaningful coincidence that Mike’s Dad looks like Santa Claus. Give yourself the Gift of a life well lived. Spend precious time adventuring with your family. Remember your family pride, your national pride, & your patriotism. It’s not about a perfect looking fleet of cars, nor a perfect behaving family. It’s about driving & enjoying the G-d Given company & scenery. Time tick tocks swiftly like your heart beat on a clock ride. Folks send me kind notes regarding my sailor suits. They belonged to my Great Uncles who served in WW2 in the South Pacific. I wear them in homage. I have several blues & whites, and I notice the small sizes. These previous generations were smaller in stature yet greater in character, with slim waists because of tight belts. Fellows who braved & sacrificed for our blood & soil & rust! Let me pour a freddie bartholomew & tell you about our weekend expedition to one of the more remarkable historic buildings in old town San Dimas, CA. It’s a routine pit stop after swap meetin’, drag racin’, & car showin’ (at the NHRA Motorsports Museum & Fairplex in Pomona), to visit Bill & Mike McGrath, father & son proprietors of the Early Ford Store at 108 W. Bonita Av. The annual San Dimas Car Show coincided with the EFS’s tenth anniversary, & hop up heads gear shifted from the four directions (Motor City MI, Speedways NC, Austin TX, NorCal) & roundup several hundred classics, hot rods, & customs on the Bonita strip & parking lots. McGrath’s Early Ford Store arrays a wondrous vault of vintage Ford parts from the impossible to locate to the sublime NOS. Whether it’s a simple bracket or a modified 40’s distributor off an early lakes job that they made a handful of- expect to find it. Mike excavated the minty original ’46 Mercury horn button I was questing from his personal cache, and the elusive NOS ’39 Ford transmission main shaft David required for a rebuild. They actually had the immediate pre & post-War Hollywood single bar accessory flipper hubcaps & a couple sets of genuine accessory teardrop skirts fitting ’36-40 Fords, to tease you custom guys. Every dig is a “Eureka!” U.S. steel, chrome, & aluminum steers each turn through this labyrinthine mandorla of a speed shop. Mike is knowledgeable of arcane mechanics without any pomposity. His rides include a stock original turquoise & white ’56 Chevy 210 2-door, 265 V8, Powerglide Trans, & a ‘28 Model A roadster pickup. The EFS is his club. Bill bought a 100% complete (extra parts in the trunk) original stock 1933 Fordor in Turlock this winter & it started on a bang so he drove it home. He proved it by firing it up in the shop & it purred- rrrrare. We went on a spin. The original mohair and cotton upholstery tufts remind me of Air Corps shearling when it pops through. No rust anywhere, quarter sawn oak floorboards. Bill’s the third owner of this lifetime California (Pasadena & Tehachapi) car with a patina of artifact, from the dash, instruments, knobs, & windows inside, to the factory pyroxylin true black lacquer & intricate grill, horn, & headlights setup outside. The flathead engine is a late ’36 production LB. 17” Kelsey-Hayes bent spoke wheels. Just one of the ponies corralled at the shop. Road test your allotment of "A" coupons this summer!

 

Damn this was a fun trip! I'm day dreaming about the next one!

 

I had fun virtually riding along! Even thought of this thread on my most recent road trip with Dad, from StL down to the Frog Follies, at Evansville, IN!

 

such a great thread it was sad to see it end, one day ill have my old falcon van done and its gonna be a road trip queen wife and i are counting the days

great thread look forward to more road trip reads