(Words and photos by Joe Grippo) – So the holidays are behind us, spring is still a ways off and we are heading into to bleakest time of the year for outdoor fun car activities. In Pennsylvania, where I am from, the pickings are slim for the next few months. Two of the better happenings, the annual open houses at Posies Rod & Custom and Worm Inc., went down last weekend on a freezing Saturday in central PA. And we were there. First up in the morning was a stop at Posies’ in lovely Hummelstown for some donuts, chocolate milk and bench racing with some likeminded shut-ins. Despite the temps in the teens a few hearty hot rodders drove up to the shop in some cool iron and fiberglass rides. A sweet, Maryland based ’40 Ford flamed coupe with mirror polished Halibrand wheels and mile deep black paint with honest patina looked gorgeous parked in the snow with the bright sun glinting off the chrome. Across the parking lot was a blazing yellow Stingray Vette with period 5 spoke wheels and fender flares looking totally bad ass and amazingly clean considering the road conditions. A bitchn’ Chevy van, a cherry ’55 Chevy wagon and another later Corvette fitted with a rack carrying a hang glider (!) filled the rest of the lot among others. While scooping out double shot of sweet mid-60’s Thunderbirds, I noticed a familiar sticker on the back window of the powder blue bird and realized there were other Bangshifters in the house. Turns out, Zack and his brother Trevor made the run to Posies from the Hamburg area to hang out. They thankfully flagged me down and we talked about Mustangs, small block Fords and his 390 T-Bird that has been in his family for generations. It was great talking to those guys and we will see them at the track this summer for sure. Inside the shop, Posie had some parts vendors set up, a sizable 50-50 raffle plus boxes of donuts, coffee and milk to gorge on. We had free reign to get up close and check out the diverse projects the Posies crew are working which ranged from a high-zoot street rod, a Cobra kit car and a  fifties Ford pick-up that is sporting some intense metal fab work. We of course met up with some more buddies and chatted about the up-coming race season and about how much the winter sucks. After the donuts were gone, we hit the road for our next stop.

A few short miles away in Grantville, Pa, the crew at Worm Inc. is busy bending tubing and welding up killer nostalgia Funny Cars and slingshot dragsters. John Worm and his daughter Audrey have good little shop going and are cranking out some great working cars for some high profile clients. Former NHRA Funny Car World Champion Bruce Larson has his second Worm car near nearing completion and on the ground in the shop. It’s the ’70 ½ Camaro in the gallery. The Beattie family of ATI Transmissions had John and his crew whip up a new Black Magic Vega for the nostalgia circuit as well. The two other Vega floppers in the shop are in varying degrees of completion with tin work progressing on one and the blue gel-coat beast still on the jig. I never did find out who these were destined for but surely we will see them on track maybe as soon as this summer. John had another of his trademark FED chassis moving along on another table for some lucky customer. It was so cool to see so many good looking, proportional yet period correct nostalgia rides coming together under one roof. And once again the order of the day at Worm’s was hanging-out, cracking jokes, bench racing and catching up with friends with whom we hadn’t seen since the end of the 2014 race season. After eating all of Worm’s BBQ chips, we headed home to go back into hibernation until the next winter shindig rolls around on the calendar; hopefully it won’t take too long to get here. Stay warm.

Check out http://www.posiesrodsandcustoms.com/ and http://www.slingshotdragsters.com/ for more on the shops we visited……