(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – We’d always been told the Pumpkin Run was large and that we ‘had’ to go.  This event is held at the Clermont County Fairgrounds in Owensville, OH.  For those not familiar…it’s just a tiny bit East of Cincinnati.  There was always something keeping us from going until this year.  We made the mistake of only attending on Saturday.  This is not nearly enough time to get a good look at what this event has to offer.

In this article we cover the swap meet, which due to where we parked, was the first thing we encountered.  We didn’t go into the swap meet with anything specific in mind.  I did want to find some 15×8 6-lug Chevy rally wheels for my truck, but that was about it.  My son did find me a set that appeared straight.  The vendors didn’t want to pack them back up so they shot me a price that forced me to buy them.

This swap meet has more traditional car parts than anything else.  Yes memorabilia is there and some new part vendors are around, but this is a haven for everything from Model A grille shells and frames to 70s muscle car hop-up parts.  My son managed to snag some very early Hedman Hedders that we’re still trying to nail down an actual year of manufacture.  They are like an early block hugger style and may be as early as ’58 or ’59.  They are stout pieces, well-built, and still very solid.  Apparently these things were all hand-built.  We found a couple articles about how they were built.  Pretty cool stuff, but enough about that…

The swap meet area is easily at least the size of a couple football fields and the photos will show in some areas it’s pretty crowded.

A few highlights:

We thought the Bradley GT was yard art.  Wrong.  You’ll see a photo in a later gallery of it cruising the grounds.  Cool.

A lace painted Boss 429 hood scoop.  If I had the spare cash it’d be on my shop wall.

371 Olds, recently rebuilt and sporting vintage speed parts.

The flat-fender Jeep-looking thing…  Homemade.  Plywood.  Chain driven.  Was running all over the place and looks like a blast to drive and way better than your average golf cart.

We didn’t cover more than around a third of the swap meet so there’s way more that we’ll have to wait till next year to capture.

Stay tuned for more from the 2018 Pumpkin Run Nationals.