(Words and Photos by Tommy Lee Byrd) – Alright, we’ll be the first to admit that we go nuts over weird cars and trucks. And without a doubt, the home of weird cars and trucks HAS to be Pigeon Forge, Tennessee during the “rod run” events. They have one in the Spring and one in the Fall, and it completely takes over the town, which is just outside of Gatlinburg, Dollywood and all that good stuff. In the past 30 years, Pigeon Forge has morphed into a land of hotels and restaurants, thanks to these massive gatherings of cars. It’s crazy.
This event was formerly known as the Grand Run, as it was held at the Grand Resort Hotel, but after being listed as one of the Top 10 worst hotels in the country (and honored as America’s Dirtiest Hotel in 2011, as selected by tripadvisor.com) it was shut down, and sold off. Now, the car show is called the Pigeon Forge Rod Run, which is pretty much what everyone called it anyway. So, let’s break it down. The actual car show feature less than 100 cars and has about 60 vendors (new parts and swap meet). Obviously, this isn’t exactly something to write home about, but it’s the five-mile stretch of wall-to-wall cars parked in every imaginable parking lot from one end of town to the other.
We’d love to know an official number of cars and people that come to Pigeon Forge for this event, but we’d estimate it’s north of the 5,000-car mark, and at prime time (Saturday afternoon) you can barely walk down the sidewalks because of the massive crowd of people. The streets are crowded with regular cars, but you’ll often see a bunch of crazy stuff out on the street. Drag cars, enormously huge 4×4 trucks and other crazy stuff get out on the street when the cops aren’t looking. Speaking of which, the Pigeon Forge Police are very strict, but hey, an event of this nature has been known to create some chaos, so it’s understandable.
All in all, the Pigeon Forge Rod Run has an insane amount of stuff that caught our attention so check out Tommy Lee Byrd’s gallery of photos to see gassers, rat rods, big trucks, weird things, and even a couple of trars thrown in the mix.
HIT THE LINK BELOW TO SEE ALL OF TOMMY LEE BYRD’S AWESOME PHOTOS!
SHOW GALLERY: 
Very cool. If i could “borrow” a couple cars from the show its a tough decision but i would choose the blown black firebird, the 28 ford tudor sedan, and the sleeper maverick. Also is it wrong of me to totally dig that jacked-up MG or whatever it is???
The show in the fall is known as Shades of the Past. I’ve never made it to the show, but last I heard, the Shades of the Past is now held on the grounds of Dollywood. One of these days, I hope to make it down, as I love visiting Gatlinburg, TN. Touristy as hell, but you can slip away into the mountains in about 5 minutes, and be looking at some of nature’s most beautiful views.
Yeah, they actually have the Shades of the Past and the Fall “Rod Run” on back-to-back weekends in September. It’s two totally separate events but the town is PACKED the whole time. Interesting story, the Shades of the Past was once held in Gatlinburg, but when it moved to Pigeon Forge, it was held at the Grand Resort Hotel. Not long after that, the event staff had some sort of falling out, and moved the event off site, so the “Grand Run” was born. They both continue to be very popular events, even being on consecutive weekends.