“The Redneck Rumble is the South’s biggest baddest hot rod, custom car and rat rod show, swap meet and lifestyle show, plus demolition derby and live music.” Do we really need any more of a reason to pack up the camera and head to Lebanon, Tennessee? You can go through the photos and validate the claims that the event organizers made, but from where we sit, it is certainly a show to go to. Held at the Wilson County Fairgrounds, the Rumble brought in the cars left, right, and center…and a couple that are far and away out of the entire ballpark. Even though the show was obviously geared to the pre-1960 crowd, that doesn’t mean that they were the only ones on the property: the newest car we remember seeing is a 1975-77 Chevy Camaro with one trick paint job sitting quietly in a row. Unless the disco C3 with the side pipes and the pissed-off exhaust note is newer, that was about the newest show car on the property. After that, have at it: trucks from the 1930s. A 1950s short bus. A 1973 Pontiac GTO. And without question, one of the most jaw-dropping finds we have yet uncovered. Let’s put it like this: we met up with Mike Finnegan and the “Blasphemi” ’55 Chevy early on in the morning, and when this Detroit Diesel-powered superbeast rolled by, barking out a two-stroke song from the tractor-flapped exhausts, in almost unison you heard the same phrase: “WTF?!” When Blasphemi looks absolutely sane by comparison to just about everything in the show, you’re at the right place.

Click on a photo below to check out our first batch of photos!