Strictly by chance we came across a car show at Ajax Downs yesterday, while on our way to Costco. The intent was for this to be a big affair, with a huge, visible lot and a full stage complete with Torte Elvis, but we hadn’t seen or heard boo about it.

Likewise, there was apparently a pretty big 2 day Bug show here in Durham but I didn’t see anything about it until Sunday afternoon.

It never ceases to amaze me how poor a job the local car show promoters do. Let’s face it, I’m pretty much hooked up in the automotive world, yet somehow I haven’t heard about these decent size local shows. Come on guys, there is lots of free and easy promotion to be had if you really want to promote your show.

Anyway, there were a handful of really cool rides on hand at Ajax Downs, and a ton of OK drivers. No wicked rats, no race cars and no muscle cars that mattered, so it took us about 10 minutes to walk the show. The cars that were interesting were sitting unattended, so there were no stories to be had either.

Grabbed a few cool shots though.

Oh yeah…the quote of the day comes from some 50 ish guy…

Hey, there goes that Corvair. You know the engine’s in the back!

He just figured that out…40 years later.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

One of the cool things about modern, old skool rods is that they are built to be driven. In some cases even flogged, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rod running an autocross course! That was part of the scene though at the Good Guys Nationals a few weeks ago in Nashville. The Garage’s roving Nashvillian, Scott Simmons from the EditBlog was on the scene and scooped tons of pics. Everything from rat rods to modern muscle, 32 Fords to Ford GT’s and just about everything in between. Even a killer Short Bus.

Check out Scott’s giant gallery after the break
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For those readers who think we here at The Garage only go road racing, here’s one for you. As you might know, LA County Raceway is set to close after next weekend’s racing. Here at The Garage, we’re not about to let an event like that slide by unnoticed, so our man on the west coast Aaron Von Minden (posing as Aaron Von Fonda above) and his crew headed to the track last weekend for a few last passes.
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Popular Hot Rodding is one of those names that most of us have seen on the magazine racks since we were just knee high to a highboy. The problem with some of those old rodding mags is that they didn’t keep up with the times and went the way of the dinosaur. Rodding in it’s earliest form was all about innovation and staying ahead of the next guy, so it makes sense that the Primedia folks are working hard to keep the PHR site ahead of the curve.
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It’s funny that I should be rattling on about engine swaps in last week’s Carnival of Wheels, and then Frostbite appears in my feeds this morning, courtesy of Hot Rod. Frostbite is a Volvo P1800 that has had a 350 Chevy crate motor shoehorned in where the B20 tractor motor once lived.

Built by Snow’s Hot Rod Shop in Aurora, this beasty lives just a few miles north of here. I may just have to pay Mr. Snow a visit to get a few more shots.

So maybe The Garage is a couple of weeks late posting on this, but yours truly is learning to use new technology. FTP??? What the hell is FTP? So now I know how to get things into a gallery, now we just need to make them prettier!

Our man on the west coast, the guy from the Savage Speed Garage was at the Grand National Roadster show a couple of weeks ago. That’s Aaron’s ride up above. This sweet beast won a Gearheads Club Award. In the new gallery, there are pics of a copper coloured 32 Roadster, built by Troy Ladd at Hollywood Hotrods. Some of you may have seen pics floating around the blogosphere a few weeks ago of a belly tanker that Coop did some work on. Well, we’ve got some pics of the finished product and this thing is just too cool.

Be sure to click through and visit our newest gallery and choose GNShow.

Watch tomorrow for another gallery of Aaron’s photos.

The boys and girls over at Hot Rod Magazine have been bringing us some of the coolest muscle for longer than many of us have been on this planet. Somehow, I stopped reading Hot Rod years ago, but now that the rod culture is starting to turn my crank again I’ve been watching with interest.

This week on HotRod.com they’ve got 3 killer Rat Rods from this year’s Power Tour. Oops, we’re not supposed to call them Rat Rods. Ok, how about looks like I found it before I bolted it up to some modern motivational devices? Either way, this segment of the hobby turns my crank.
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