(Words and photos by Joe Grippo) – The deep freeze is upon us here in the North East. The race cars are winterized and tucked away and our road going Hot Rods are huddling around the shop heaters watching the calendar pages not turning fast enough. Not much to do except hit the big East Coast Indoor Nationals at the Cow Palace down in Timonium, Maryland! The East Coast Indoor Nats is the first leg of the new 2018 Triple Crown Challenge, a triumvirate of right coast indoor car shows that include the Motorama in Harrisburg, Pa (February 17-18) and the Mid Atlantic Indoor Nats (April 7-8). This show series offers bonus cash and other prizes for participants who attend and/or place at all three events. BangShift is planning to cover all three events so check back frequently.
The East Coast Indoor Nats featured loads of everything to spin your automotive crank. So as not to totally explode your mind, we took the liberty of breaking up our photo coverage in somewhat digestible chunks of motorized goodness. Take this gallery of Hot Rods and Customs for instance. The red and blue ’32 Ford coupes are immaculate examples of the venerable hot rod archetype. Veteran Maryland hot rodder Frank Morawski owns the ever so perfectly proportioned ice blue 3 window. From the snow white gut to the mirror like finish of the magnesium Halibrand smoothies, this thing was 60’s show rod personified. The red 5 window was a more contemporary build with its mile-deep blood like paint, killer stance and steelies wrapped in white walls. Both had us going back for second and even third looks.
Customs have always been part of the show scene, and Timonium had a few prime examples. Lohnes will surly fall in love the radical square bird and the Steve Stanford designed early ‘70s version. The latter was featured on BS in some SEMA coverage back in 2015. Volkswagens had a strong presence with a few killer bugs dragging the running boards on the show floor. There is something for everyone in here, Gassers, Hiboys, Tri-Five Chevys and much more.
Much more to come from this event, so check back often…
