Judging Ain’t Easy…

This past weekend was pretty epic for me, and definitely a very big honor. I was invited to help judge the ‘Hot Rod Cover Car’ class at the 69th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Hot rods don’t get invited to Pebble every year, and it was a long road with lots of serious effort from enthusiasts like Bruce Meyer to get them on the lawn at all. This year had nine very significant hot rods that had all been featured on car magazine covers between the 1950s and 1990s. Entrants included the Eddie Dye Roadster, TV Tommy Ivo’s T, Tweety Bird, and yes, the freshly-restored Norm Grabowski Kookie Kar, which indeed won our Best in Class. So how did we choose the winner? The first thing the judges had to examine was if each car looked precisely as it did on the original magazine cover. Then you go down a very long list of questions and checks: Is the vehicle totally finished? Does it run? Any tiny damage or missing bits? Incorrect parts? Then it gets down to very subjective things, like if it would be considered iconic, has a ‘wow’ factor, historical significance, etc. Bottom line, it’s just not a walk in the park to choose one winner. I can say with certainty we picked the right car on Sunday with the Kookie T. Serious hats off to Roy Brizio, Darryl Hollenbeck, and their entire teams, which did a phenomenal job putting the T back to 100% correct, down to the very last nut and bolt. The original Roto-Faze ignition, correct Horne 4 carb Caddy manifold, striping, hose claps, and so forth. Norm was looking down and smiling as the Kookie Kar drove over the ramp, that’s for sure. Congratulations to every hot rod there, as it’s not easy to even get invited, and it’s sure not easy to judge!