(8) World Of Wheels 2009

Today Amber and I decided (mostly I decided I guess) that we would head up to the Indiana State Fairgrounds to scope out the World of Wheels car show sponsored by CarQuest. Amber had never been before, and I enjoy going, so it seemed like a fun thing to do on a whim (even though I had been secretly daydreaming about going all week). We saddled up the Subaru around 1045 this morning and headed north on I65 for Indianapolis. I shot across 465 to take the scenic East Street (US31) through downtown Indy rather than cheat ourselves out of the architectural scenery of old Indianapolis. We too Fall Creek Rd up to 38th street which puts you right by the fairgrounds. We went east on 38th a couple blocks to catch some lunch at the KFC. 30 minutes later we were well fed and ready to drool on some classic cars.

Parking was ample across the street from the fairgrounds, and was only 3 bucks. That's not too bad. We crossed the street and walked up to the Toyota building where the event was being held. Admission was $14 for adults, and I got nixed on the attempt at a military discount, so we are now up to $31 in admission and parking. We get in the doors and enter the enormous maze of classic cars. I'm feeling like a kid in a candy store right about now, ready to run wild. Knowing Amber would probably like to enjoy this as well, I decide to take a more leisurely approach to our spectating, and we gradually moved along the rows of cars. One of the first cars we noticed was P32 Traditional Rod built by the famous Chip Foose. There were hoards of restored muscle cars of all makes from the 60's and 70's in the main show area, along with different vendors. We saw some pretty rare cars such as the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302, 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass W31, 1971 Plymouth Barracuda Hemi, and so forth.

Once we combed through the main area, we headed through the canvas hallway outside to another building. As we entered this building, we stumbled upon a platform where none other than Henry Winkler, also known as Arthur Fonzarelli or 'The Fonz', from Happy Days was signing autographs and shaking hands. There was a pretty good line to get his autograph, so I just settled for a picture from about 12 feet away. Once we got past the starstruck phase we noticed that there were a good couple hundred custom cars from the 20's to the 50's to be seen. These are the cars that really get me excited. From chop tops to rat rods, they had everything a fella could imagine. Also in this building was the 'tuner' car exhibits. Tuner cars are the generic name for more modern cars, both import and domestic, as long as they fit the enthusiast crowd's image of sporty style. Front-wheel drive, fuel injection, and smaller displacement engines have become more prevalent in today's cars, but that hasn't stopped a new generation of car enthusiasts from finding new innovative ways to customize their genre of autos with both style and performance.

The third and final show area yielded several more custom cars from all eras, along with some famous cars such as the 'Mach 5' used in the new Speed Racer movie, and 'Kitt' from the TV show Night Rider was present in both original and modern form. We also ran into some more celebrities such as Spongebob Squarepants, the Pink Panther, and 'Martha' from High School Musical. As we were strolling past the vendors, we noticed a lively demonstration taking place of a famous 'Super Shammy' that was strikingly similar to the demonstration you might have seen on TV labeled as the 'ShamWow!', only this product beared no such name. It was the classic soda in the carpet scene, and the longer we stood there the better the deal got! Well we got a great deal, because we walked away with every cent we walked up with. Next we stumbled upon an auction that was selling custom pinstriped items from famous freehand pinstripers in the auto industry. They were auctioning mailboxes, garbage barrels, signs, even toilet seats with custom pinstriping. I waited to see how much this stuff was going for, and quickly found out that I didn't have enough cash in my pocket to walk away with a $90 trash receptacle. Needless to say we moved on.

We had now seen every square foot of the car show, and Amber was starting to get worn down from the walking and shuffling through spectators, so we decided to snap a few more shots of us with cars and head for home. All in all it was a great time. I'm looking forward to going again next year. Hopefully Amber will want to tag along again.

Until next time...