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2023 Grand National Roadster Show Mega Photo Gallery | Hot rod heaven

POMONA, Calif. — From an outsider's perspective, it would be easy to assume that the Grand National Roadster Show has always been a Southern California institution. After all, it celebrates the diverse postwar car culture of the region — hot rods, lead sleds, lowriders, and more. However, the show had its roots in NorCal in 1950 when Al Slonaker and his hot rod club showed their custom cars at the Oakland Expo. The GNRS moved to Pomona, California, in 2004. By then it had grown exponentially and seen about a dozen more car customization trends come and go. However, the show and its centerpiece award, the America's Most Beautiful Roadster prize, celebrate what is perhaps the first of those trends: the American hot rod in its purest form. Today, in its 73rd year, the GNRS is the oldest indoor car show in America. Annually it welcomes 500-800 cars, gathered into special themes like Tri-Five Chevys or Volkswagen Bugs. At this year's show, which was last weekend, a special hall was dedicated to pickup trucks built between 1948-98, including mini-trucks, groovy camper bed conversions, and resto-mods.  However, of all the vehicles presented, only nine are eligible for the America's Most Beautiful Roadster award. Winners get their names engraved on a 9-foot-tall perpetual trophy that was, according to The Ultimate Hot Rod Dictionary, the largest in the world when it debuted in 1950. Slonaker chose the word "roadster" initially because "hot rod" bore slightly negative outlaw connotations in 1950. Only American cars built before 1937 of certain body styles — roadsters, roadster pickups, phaetons, touring cars — are eligible, and they cannot have roll-down side windows.  Cars in the running for the cup cannot have been shown anywhere else before their debut at the GNRS.  Contestants for this accolade essentially build their cars to the a platonic ideal of a hot rod. This year the honors went to Jack Chisenhall of San Antonio, Texas, for his "Champ Deuce," a 1932 Ford Roadster. It's exactly what you picture when you think of a hot rod, but distilled to its absolute essence.  Other standouts included "Green Eyes," a two-tone green 1959 Chevy El Camino  with a heavily metal-flaked bed, "Blue Monday," a 1964 Buick Riviera lowrider, and a personal favorite, "Purple Reign," a purple and black 1951 Mercury. Cars may have started out as tools, but there aren't shows like this filled with custom refrigerators.

Chrysler patents smarter minivan folding seats

It's frightening to think of how quickly the mice would have overtaken us if we hadn't stayed one step ahead of them with better mousetraps. We'll never have to worry about that in our relentlessly re-engineered world, though. Case in point: Chrysler has been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office for an improved design of the already wondrous Stow 'n' Go seating found in the automaker's Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans.
Introduced in 2005, the Stow 'n' Go was improved in 2008, and based on the drawings of this third-generation improvement, the new design appears to allow stowage of the second row of seats without having to move the front-row seats forward as much. It look like it also involves fewer operations and moving parts, with a portion of the seatback being incorporated into the flat floor when the seats are stowed, as opposed to having a completely separate cover.
It's possible that the innovation may appear on the next-generation minivans expected in 2015, but Chrysler isn't commenting on the patent.

Dodge delaying Challenger Hellcats ordered with satin black hood [UPDATE]

The new Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is one of the most formidable muscle cars on the planet. And it looks the part, too – especially with the optional satin black hood. But if you were one of the first customers to place an order for the 707-horsepower Mopar muscle car and specified the black hood on the options sheet, you may have to wait awhile. According to members of the Hellcat.org forum cited by Car and Driver, deliveries of certain Challenger Hellcats have been delayed without explanation. When these fanatic customers started looking into the issue, they realized that all of the delayed orders shared one thing in common: they all had ordered their Dodges with that optional black hood. Although an exact reason wasn't specified, those who ordered the black hood on their Challenger coupes were told that delivery was being pushed back to February. But some were reportedly informed by their local dealership that things could be moved along if they switched their order to a body-colored hood instead. It's not clear if the issue is a supplier problem, a paint booth issue at the factory, or something else entirely. We've reached out to Dodge for clarification, and will update this story when we hear back. UPDATE: Reached for comment, a Dodge spokesperson confirmed to Autoblog that the satin black hood "is not currently available for production" and that customers who ordered it "can opt to change their order to a body-color hood" or otherwise have their orders delayed until the option becomes available at a later date to be confirmed.