Sixty-two years of practice makes perfect. The Grand National Roadster show that began from humble roots back in 1950 at the Oakland Exposition Center has become one of the premiere custom cars shows in the world. That year, Bill Niekamp’s ‘29 Ford Roadster took the top title and earned the nine-foot tall trophy kicking off the legacy for a show that just seems to get bigger ever year. This year’s theme – Route 66 – included the annual Pinstripers Reunion and visits by custom car celebrities such as George Barris, Chip Foose, Steve Strope, Troy Trepanier, Zane Cullen and more.

After many years as an exclusive Bay Area staple, the show was moved to Southern California in 2004, as the current owner Ted Cyr, came looking for warmer climate where rain would be less of a challenge to the amazing show.

This year’s winner was Daryl Wolfswinker with his ’34 Ford roadster, an amazing example of American hot rodding craftsmanship. The blacked-out, cool and smoothed machine earned the American’s Most Beautiful Roaster trophy to much acclaim. We only hope he has a chase vehicle as that AMBR trophy won’t come close to fitting inside with Daryl – for obvious reasons.

For three days, the Pomona fairgrounds were jam-packed with spectators to see the 800-plus custom cars, trucks and vans. The Grand National Roadster show is an eclectic collection of vehicles assembled in the seven different Fairplex buildings.

Themed by vehicle type, the degree of organization makes it easy to select your favorite style of custom vehicle and find it all in one place. As has become standard faire, categories included hot rods, lead sleds, suede customs, dragsters, vans, trucks, rat rods and vintage custom motorcycles – along with the cool roadster building which housed the best customs on the planet.

One of our favorite builders, Troy Trepanier once again cemented his name into the Grand National Roadster show history books with his “Notorious” Nova. Built at his Wisconsin shop, Rad Rides by Troy,

“Notorious” took home top honors in not one, but two categories at the historic event. The stunning two-toned charcoal 1970 Nova won top honors for both the “Best Pro Touring” and the “Best Street Machine/Pro Comp” classes.

Other 2011 award winners for this show included Coby Gewertz’s ’63 Ford Econoline which collected the Chip Foose Designer’s Award, Ron Cambra’s GRNS Mile custom van for his ’71 Dodge Tradesman van and Robert and Dava Kurhajian’s ’58 Chevy pickup with was the Mild Custom Award winner recipient. David Engle earned the Best Custom Wagon trophy.

Troy Trepanier began with a highly massaged custom 1970 Nova body, added BASF Glasurit Mercedes charcoal paint, a ProCharger-equipped GM 572cui crate engine, a “one off” Rad Rides-built digital fuel injection using Big Stuff 3 electronics, added twin fuel pumps to feed the beast, an 4L80E trans, and topped it off with a custom dual three-inch Flowmaster exhaust system with Super 40 mufflers.

Mix that up with a creative imagination, thousands of hours of labor and lots of money and you’ve got a multi-award winning show car.

OK, so maybe it’s not really that simple for us normal weekend warrior car folk. And like all the cars built by the Rad Rides crew, the car goes as good as it looks, and gets driven daily by the car’s owner, Gary Abraham who’s had the Nova since high school, yet in nowhere near as nice a condition until Trepanier got a hold of it.

All in all, this year’s Grand National Roadster Show was as impressive as ever and shows us that the hot rodding hobby has only one way to go: up!