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It’s hard to be an automotive enthusiast and to not be familiar with the name “Edelbrock” these days. The company has been around as long as hot rodding, and with its deep roots in racing and performance, it’s no surprise that you’ll find that scripted logo under the hood of a majority of musclecars and hot rods.
The show in Torrance, again held at Vic’s Garage, had the surrounding streets blocked off to make room for hundreds of cars and plenty of spectators throughout the day. With live music, awards, a food pavilion, and a play zone for kids, the annual Edelbrock car show truly is a family event with something for everyone.
If you wanted some ideas for your own build, there were plenty. If you wanted to see some teens putting tools to use and building an engine, then the Hot Rodders of Tomorrow was a great place to see young kids getting enthusiastic about putting together a small-block for the best time. The vendors lined up for what was questionable weather, and hung in to the very end with samples from their respective catalogs.
The forecast called for rain, but that didn’t stop the masses from showing up in some of the areas coolest hot rods and musclecars. And with barely a few sprinkles here and there, the show continued on throughout the day and we all kept dry. It’s a shame some left when the first drop hit, but that first drop (that everyone collectively felt) actually didn’t bring much more with it. Vic, Jr., must have had some special eForces working for him that weekend.
Out in the streets, and in the adjacent parking lots, that’s where the real fun was for us gearheads. The multitude of cars and trucks lined up, that’s an area that never ceases to amaze and impress. Our video crew stopped by with host Dennis Pittsenbarger to check out some rides and talk to the people.
The Show Cars In The Car Show
One of the cooler customs at the event was a car we’ve seen a few times now, and yet we hadn’t gotten the full story until we were able to talk with car owner Chuck Shauwecker. “Rod Riguez” was built by Junichi Shimodaira, owner of Paradise Road, a custom shop in Nagoya, Japan. After the car was brought here a few years back, it stayed here when Chuck purchased it so that Junichi wouldn’t have to ship it back.
Rob Simons, an Edelbrock employee, showed off his own custom built 1967 Firebird. Rob purchased it as a shell several years ago and swapping in an LS3 and an Edelbrock supercharger to make one sweet looking bird with some brawn to back up the beauty.
Rob’s attention was later summoned to explain one of the highlights of the show, the Factory Five Mk4 Roadster that FFR head honcho Dave Smith pulled from his own personal collection to showcase an Edelbrock Coyote crate engine. Dave said it was time to up the ante for today’s hobbyist, 700 horsepower was yesterday, so the 800 horsepower blown Edelbrock crate engine was the perfect choice for this build, all done up in Edelbrock red.
Our Top Picks From The Show
We try to pick our favorites from the show, and to tell you a little about them. This year, there were plenty of entries that caught our attention, and unfortunately, there are so many that we would have a hard time covering them all. But a few of our favorites are below, and we’ll get to our favorite pick and bring that to you in a separate article coming up. For the time being, enjoy our top picks, and a little fun with the early Mustang first, and see more of our photos in the gallery at the bottom.
While this isn't the original, one-of, Mustang wagon that Ford toyed with, this Shelby GT350 Saloon tribute to the Mustang wagon has been making the rounds, and it's a pretty cool "what if" that likely would have become a top seller.
Speaking of Mustangs, we really liked this chop top mustang below. At first glance, you see the vinyl top and know something is different, and then you realize you don’t need to adjust your camera lens, because the top really did have a couple inches taken out of it.
Have we seen a chop top Mustang like this before? Absolutely, but not often enough to say it’s common, and this one got our attention long enough to snap some photos. The rest of the body looks like it was left alone, but that’s about as far as it goes when you think “stock”, because there’s nothing stock about this car.
Inside, custom gauges and interior treatment makes it look like a fun ride, and under the hood it’s got a little bit of brawn to battle it out in the streets. Especially nice is the two-tone paint separated by silver striping along the body line. The blackout treatment to the normally chrome window framing was a nice touch as well.
As we walked further down the street, we fell in love with a few more cars that showed up, and one in particular was this 1959 Chevrolet Impala Wagon. We love clean wagons from the musclecar era, and especially when they’re treated to some custom touches.
What you notice about this particular model is that while it’s a big bodied Impala, it’s just a two door model. There were some four door models out there, but this version is our choice hands down. And those fins… gotta love ’em.
Moving further down the road, hidden among a few of its siblings, we found this road racing V8 powered Corvair. While we initially thought maybe the owner didn’t bother cleaning up the fenders and getting all the road grime off, a few steps closer and we realized that wasn’t road debris kicked up.
We loved the skull detail on the front – a sort of apocalyptic scene of survival, we checked closely, but none of the skulls seem to resemble Mr. Nader. We looked the car over and there were a few pretty cool touches, but the bottom line is that you just can’t go wrong when you stab a V8 mill into the back seat area of a Corvair.
Another beauty that we found a bit irresistible was this beautiful 1964 Chevelle Malibu below. It was our favorite pick of the show, and we just couldn’t get enough of that color. Owner Sean Mason, of Chino Hills, California, tells us that the color is a special mix from House of Kolor.
The convertible is exceptionally clean, and we don’t want to give too much of this cool cruiser away, saving the best for our full feature article that we promised to Sean. What we can tell you is that it started out in pretty bad shape, but he brought it back in four years – finishing the car last year.
Sean tells us this car is all done, and we like it the way it is too. It truly needs nothing and has won a few awards in the year since he’s finished the car. He said he spent some time finding this car because, “My wife loves convertibles,” he told us. What a gorgeous build… and did we mention that paint color? Stunning!
We did find a few more cars that we couldn’t stay away from, and we’re still waiting to hear back from the owners. But in the meantime, enjoy the gallery of photos we collected below from the 12th Annual Edelbrock Car Show. If you missed it this year, now you know… make some plans for next year!
