HOME-GROWN HOTRODS

Jack D. McKinney

Lexington, KY 40502

HOME-GROWN HOTRODS

Gearheads Converge on the Derby City for the Beatersville Car and Bike Show

Jack D. McKinney

Bruce Bowe knows that his ’30 Model A two-door sedan needs a little work. He rolled into Louisville’s Phoenix Hill Tavern parking lot, home of the Beatersville Car and Bike Show, on just ten pounds of oil pressure. “It might seize up and smoke when I get home but it’ll make it,” Bowe said.

Bowe is exactly the sort of guy Shawn Blandford had in mind when he started Beatersville. Some of the cars here are nearly flawless in pinstripes, flames or glossy finishes. But many others have imperfections, and that’s fine with Blandford. This show is for dedicated home-builders, blue collar types creating unique rides that can compete with anything the West Coast has to offer. “That’s what these cars are about. These are the people who can’t afford $100,000 cars. This is your working-class people.”

Blandford estimated that the event had doubled in size in just its second year. Builders brought vehicles from several states, and spectators came from as far away as Germany. On the Sunday before Memorial Day, hardcore gearheads convened in the Derby city, and the intersection of Bardstown Road and Baxter Avenue was filled with the throaty rumble of hotrods. It was hard to tell what turned heads the fastest – the rust-covered ratrod, the award winning roadster or the ladies in fishnet stockings who looked like they just stepped off the pages of a 1950’s pin-up calendar.

These cars have been chopped, lowered, customized, modified, laid-back, extended, fitted, tucked and rolled, and hand-crafted. Junkyards, swap meets and E-Bay were pillaged of every conceivable part of car, truck, tractor and even boats to create vehicles as noisy, outrageous and original as the men who assembled them. The one thing that was unwelcome at Beatersville was a trailer. Drive it here or don’t bring it.

So Bruce Bowe drove to Beatersville despite creating a minor domestic squabble. “My wife came out this morning . . . she said ‘You’re gonna ruin it,’” Bowe said. “All I’m gonna do is spend a cam bearing and it’s already junk so I’m driving it.”

Bowe found the body in Minnesota, built the chassis himself, and put a 354 Hemi out of a ’57 Dodge two-ton truck in it. He did all the work himself except for the interior, which his neighbor helped fashion out of burlap coffee sacks.

Another builder, Jason Grimes, said he “pretty much wanted to put a car together out of junk laying around the shop.” He did just that, assembling his ‘31 Plymouth Modified Roadster in merely 11 days. Nobody would ever guess that it was a four-door sedan before he cut off the roof and got rid of the back doors. The junk lying around the shop apparently included the dashboard from a ’34 Chevy pick-up truck, a gas tank from a tractor and restaurant chairs from a Pizza Hut, all of which found their way into this creation.

Grimes now lives in nearby Lebanon Junction, Kentucky but he grew up just south of Cleveland and said that as a kid he was always coming to the Louisville area for shows and swap meets. Grimes is impressed with the work coming out of the middle part of the country. This region, he says, is full of “really killer builders . . . that don’t get a lot of recognition.”Grimes also brought a long-term project, a chopped ’46 Chevy truck. The truck will ultimately get the full treatment of paint and chrome but not the Plymouth. That 11 day build didn’t leave time for primer and paint and now that it’s running, Grimes doesn’t seem too concerned about the layer of rust encrusting it. At this point, he says, “I’d rather drive it than work on it.”

Anyone at Beatersville looking to pretty-up his ride, could have turned to Furious George, a painter who was spotted adding pinstripes to a go-kart. Another option would be to seek out a Miss Beatersville contestant. These shapely women were happy to pose by your ride in exchange for a one-dollar vote.

Classic silhouettes were abundant at Phoenix Hill Tavern, few more so than the ’47 Ford of a builder known simply as “Dice” and Cecil Shrout’s classic ’32 Ford Roadster. Originally from Japan, Dice is an engineer by trade who spent 3 years working nights and weekends on his vehicle. He still needs to add some paint and chrome, and finish the interior with white tuck and roll vinyl. He hopes to have it completed by August.

Cecil Shrout of Palmyra, Indiana always wanted a roadster and it would be hard to improve on his black ’32 Ford. “The concept was to build it like they built in the ‘50s” Shrout said. The body came from Virginia, the frame from Ohio and he went through seven flathead motors before finding the ’49 Ford that powers this vehicle. One of the most distinctive features is the rear deck lid with 116 louvers and marker lights beneath, turning it into a giant brake light. It was difficult to see in broad daylight, but according to Shrout, “At nighttime when you hit it . . .the whole rear end lights up.” This car was featured at last year’s NHRA Labor Day Nationals and seen in National Dragster magazine.

Shawn Blandford takes pride in the success of Beatersville. “It’s my show so I think it’s better than all the other ones, but I guess I’m biased,” he said. Cars and builders who had been rejected from other shows are finally getting the attention they deserve. “Now everybody’s realizing this is cool.” He intends to bring Beaterville back year after year. “We’ll ride it ‘til the wheels fall off.”