75 th Annual Grand
National Roadster Show By Louie Mayall T he Grand National Roadster Show just seems to get better every year and the 75th included some moving retrospectives. The show started in 1949 when Al and Mary Slonaker put on a car show to promote the new, sporty imports, but had also heard young guys just back from the war were into these crazy hot rods, so they included a display of “Street Roadsters” to attract show goers. They went to the local drive-in and started recruiting for cool cars. At the time they didn’t know what was cool and let the guys self decide who was coming. Turns out, these ‘hot rods’ (called street roadsters to avoid the derogatory term, hot rod) were the biggest draw. After the first show, Al and Mary decided to embrace something new and they started “The National Roadster Show” (the Grand was added in the ‘60s) and purchased the giant trophy that is still used from what would become Zales Jewelers. The National Roadster Show was put on in February of 1950 and Bill Niekamp won the first “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” for his slick ’29 Ford
roadster with a track nose. Al and Mary had a great time promoting the show throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, eventually retiring in 1973. The show was then bought by Harold Bagdasarian and Darryl Starbird until Darryl left and Don Tognotti stepped in with Harold. Tognotti eventually ran the show solo until Dan Cry took over and that leads us to Rod Shows and John Buck who has run the show since 2004. The show moved around from starting in the Cow Palace in Frisco, the Oakland Expo Building, even the San Mateo Fairgrounds, but we mostly remember going to the Oakland Coliseum or its current home in SoCal at the Pomona Fairplex. Rod Shows has done an amazing job filling the multi-building Fairplex by creating ‘themes’ for each building and this year’s show featured all the great attractions we have come to love like competition for the “Slonaker” and “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” awards, Suede Palace for traditional rods and customs, the Grand Daddy Drive-In outdoor car exposition, all the great classes of show cars, a Pinstriping Charity Auction, the Custom’s Room featuring Barris Kustoms this year, a wonderful Manufacturers Midway, Nitro fire-ups, Educational Seminars, and tons of autograph meet and greets with legends. This year’s We were drooling all over Blackie Gejeian’s ’27 Fodr roadster right when we walked in the door and fell in love all over again. Apparently, in the early years Blackie wanted to dress up his display using mirrors, stands and such, but when the show started a mirror exactly like the one under Blackie’s ’27 was missing from the lady’s room. Amazing coincidence?
42 MAY 2025
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