29 Below
By Louie Mayall
A lthough there are thousands of different types of rodders, rarely do you get a glimpse at our younger rodders unless you visit NSRA’s 29 Below gatherings held at all events. The rules are simple: The rod must be registered at the event, the car must be registered to the participant, and the participant needs to be less than 30 years old. That’s it! The 29 Below gatherings give us a look at all the different kinds of young rodders and their cars. Some kids build a perfect rod to start with and are still cruising in that rod 30 years later. Some just keep building cool rod after cool rod with each one getting better and quite a few begin with a rough vehicle that slowly gets nicer over the years. The generational influence on today’s kids building or inheriting their cruiser from dad or grandpa is by MADE ‘EM ALL N ot surprisingly, most of our 29 Below participants are second-generation rodders and many have a grandparent or two that are/were rodders. In the case of Alex Kline out of Plainwell, Michigan, his dad tools around in an extended cab ’31 Ford pickup and Alex in his ’37 Ford two-door sedan. In 2025 Alex did something that as far as we know, has not been done before. Alex registered at all nine 2025 NSRA events as a 29 Below participant. He and his dad traveled to all nine events together, but it wasn’t always easy for Alex as I witnessed him wrenching on his ’37 Ford more than once while his dad was eating food and BS’ing with new friends. As you can imagine, I got to know Alex and his dad, Bill Kline, well during the year’s event circuit, including a dinner or two and lots of bench racing and ribbing. They had a great time
far the most common reason NSRA’s 29 Below continues since it was started in 1983. Naturally, some young people come to an NSRA event and don’t visit the 29 Below gatherings. I understand, a typical event is packed with activities and thousands of rods to grab your attention, but because of my job those kids are noticed too. We get a lot of comments about the cars we include in the magazine (and online), and we do try to include everybody, but it just can’t be done. Luckily, we can showcase a wide variety of future dreams that roll through the 29 Below section of NSRA Divisional events and the Street Rod Nationals. We think that’s pretty cool and hope to not only keep kids coming back but to also inspire a few along the way.
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sharing their experience all year, including buying a ’59 Chevrolet station wagon in York, Pennsylvania. Alex loved dad’s ‘new-old-car’ so much he took it to Louisville and promptly broke the rear axle. The ’59 got fixed and Alex learned, “It ain’t rodding if you don’t break something.” Like many 29 Below participants, Alex bought his ’37 from a family friend. In this case, it was his second street rod and it was already built and ready for Alex to make his own. The stock chassis has been fully boxed and the center crossmember was stiffened and widened for the 700R4. The front crossmember was replaced with one for a Mustang II IFS with disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, and dropped spindles. The rear suspension is on the stock spring, runs gas shocks on the factory crossmember, and a modern open differential. Alex built himself a sweet powerplant for his new ride. The basic Chevy 350 was upgraded with a forged rotating assembly,
MID-AMERICA
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