Blackie Gejeians 49th Annual Invitational Rod & Custom Show

Fresno Autorama
March 14th, 15th & 16th, 2008

At the So. San Francisco Rod & Custom Show in January, we were honored to be selected by Blackie Gejeian to attend his annual invitational show at Fresno, CA. in mid-March. We spruced up our ’40 Ford convert, loaded the truck and trailer and on a nice warm sunny morning, headed south on the freeway. Some of our fun on these trips is eating out and we began with a great breakfast at one of our favorites, Black Bear Diner in Yreka, Ca. Shasta Dam was the lowest we have ever seen it, we travel with a horde of semi’s and RV’s as the temperature climbs and the sun is a pleasant change from the wintery weather lately in our home town. We decided to take the most direct route and turned onto old Hwy. 99 just south of Sacramento. We hadn’t been this route for a few years so were amazed at all the new construction, shopping plazas and new business along the way. It was a nice change of scenery, we spotted a herd of deer calmly grazing in a field amid several cattle and the roadsides were ablaze with orange and yellow poppies interspersed with purple verbenia flowers. The GPS steered us direct to the host Ramada Hotel on Hwy. 41 where we had ample parking, checked in at 6pm and ate a nice dinner at the in-house café.

Thursday was set-up day and by 8am,we had the trailer parked in the side lot awaiting the call to drive our car into the building. Tom, the manager of the rear entrance doors was very helpful, had us bring the ‘40 right up for staging and arranged for us to get one of their large dollies which enabled us to haul all our display material in one trip. Most of the vendors had set up on Wednesday and several of the larger vehicle displays were already located. Blackie was whipping around on his scooter and busy personally placing the cars by model and color just as he wants them to be shown. The majority of us are standing by our cars waiting to be called, then yells out your car by color or style and whistles constantly for attention. We were called about 9am and motioned to follow him through the aisles then he pointed at a space and told me the way to park and even the angle he wanted it to sit. We’re on an aisle under a low ceiling with great lighting for our pearl and metal flake paint. I no sooner had the carpet down when his helpers were right there to assist me in spotting the car while Blackie was in back and shouting out instructions to all of us. Luckily, a couple of friends had pre-warned me of his demanding routine, but it’s his show, he’s done it for years and he has to get us all staged by the end of this evening. One car owner was not available for placing when called, arrived 2 hours later and was told to leave!!! Another didn’t like the spot he was given so he was shown the way out…you don’t mess with Blackie!!! As our set-up now is fairly simple and I’ve got it down to a science, the display is done, we do some polishing and even had time for a little socializing. We got re-acqu-ainted with several owners we’d met in San Francisco, some we’d had at our indoor show in Central Point and more we’d met at other shows in the past 2 years. A secure lot with a 24 hour guard is available for our trailer which is better than the tight space at the Ramada. After registering, we scanned the show items and left for a late lunch. Just west of the hotel we found a raft of restaurants and chose to eat at ‘Sweet Tomatos’, healthy diet of salads and soups and a chain we don’t have at home. We did a little shopping and returned to our room to unwind after a busy 2 days for us ‘seniors’.

The hotel is full of street-rodders and we met a lot of them next morning at the special breakfast provided by the hotel. Their staff is very friendly, eager to help and even though one of the older ones in the chain, it has all the amenities plus clean and is well kept by the maids. Our parking pass allowed us to leave the truck less than half a block from the Auditorium and we arrived about 10am to do some more cleaning and check our lighting. The building is full of the best array of rods and customs I have ever seen assembled at one place. There is a gathering of early nostalgia types, Track-nose T’s, A’s, ‘32s and some old rides I recognized from early magazine articles. Every car was finished, no rat rods, no for sale signs and no seats either. All the displays are complete, the vendors are on hand and at 1pm, the spectators begin to file in. We were hob-nobbing with some of the owners next to us when we got caught up meeting some of the viewers and spent a few hours extolling our car’s credits for our friend Tommy Carr of Gold Hill, OR. It was really neat to talk to so many people who are so knowledgeable about ‘40s, learn of their rides and I even met some guys I had raced against years ago. But as my side- kick, Ray Dalke commented, being at this event was a ‘Humbling Ex-
perience’ since there were so many high dollar, beautiful cars, wagons and pick ups in this show. Included were the 2008 WMBR winner, a ’32 worth $1.5 mil, the ‘Mercules’ from Australia, the WMBC winner for ’08, a ’40 Merc conv. judged in the top 8 from this year’s Riddler picks, a ’33 Willys which was a runner up at the ‘07 Detroit Autorama, a 3 door ’48 Chevy Ext.Cab. P/U and the ‘New Munster Koach’ by the “King of Customs”, George Barris. By Blackie’s own admission, this was un-doubledly the finest collection of all types of vehicles ever displayed to to the public on the west coast. Even the vendors were some of the best that attend the indoor show circuit, including Phil & Helen of Buffalo Milke, House of Kolor with the inventor Jon Kosmiski, in attendance, Kustomotive’s John Riccitelli doing airbrushing right on site and my favorite…Gene Winfield in his booth signing autographs, displaying photos spanning over 60 years of his customizing talents with a line if accessories that go back just a far. He has just turned 80 years young, is still doing painting all over the world and travels from one show to another most of the year. (See the other story about him in this web site forum.) We shopped all the vendors, spent more time chatting with other car owners then about 7pm went to Marie Calender’s for a good dinner and called it a night.

Breakfast at the hotel with several others has become a daily ritual now as we talk about this car and that, discuss the show, relate our favorite stories and solve all the world’s problems. The doors are already open when we get to the auditorium and there is a good line-up of spectators buying their tickets. Our passes allow us to enter at another door where there is no wait and we hustle to our cars to take off the evening dust. This is the least dusty show we have attended to date which makes clean-up a 10 minute job, but again, we get yakking with some of the public and spent the rest of the morning meeting a lot more car buffs. Blackie was busy signing posters, pelons and many other items people shoved in front of him. We took ours over and had Gene Winfield autograph them as well. Ron and Val Valiquette (Red Raspberry ’40 Merc conv.) invited us over to their motor-mansion-home for drinks and snacks at 6pm so we went to the hotel, spruced up and filled the truck with diesel ($3.99 a gal.) on the way back to the trailer lot. On arriving, we got the $1.49 tour of their beautiful 40’ Marathon coach. The brown and cream elegant outer paint design is tastefully carried through on the inside with premium cherry-wood cabinetry, cream plastic accents, lighting and mirroring everywhere and everything power operated. Another Canadian friend, Eric Adams (’37 Lincoln, maroon pearl 2 door hardtop sedan) came over and Ron poured while we chatted about the ‘good old days’ we’ve all enjoyed. At 8pm,we cruised over to the Cheesecake Factory for a huge dinner where many other rodders were also eating at this great restaurant. We parted at 10pm and retired early as Sunday would be a long day.

Our same morning routine, then spent the next 3 hours taking photos, gabbing with owners and vendors all afternoon as we awaited the award presentations. These festivities were slated to begin at 6pm. and started right on time. Blackie spoke for about 15minutes, paying tribute to all the car owners plus thanking us all for attending to what he named ‘the finest gathering of specialty vehicles ever in the Fresno area. He gave a short requiem to his recently passed son then talked about his next and possibly last, show, the 50th Annual Invitational.

Presentations began with Paul Evert awarding a memorable plaque to Blackie for his many years of hosting great events, Street Rodder magazine also gave a tribute then began the awarding of over a hundred 5’ tri-level and much adorned trophies. The announcer did a good job in spite if the poor PA sound, calling the class, the owners name and a short description of the car. Soon a line formed at the base of the stage stairs as several of the winners took a minute to say comments to Blackie as he handed them their award. I don’t know why, but when they announced our class, ‘Radical Custom Conv.’ our name was called 1st and I quickly got into line. Ron’s million dollar Merc was called about 8 or 9 names later but he came up and stood beside me. I got the idea he wanted to go up ahead of me and since we both have a competitive nature, I decided we were called 1st and I was going to go up 1st, so I put my hand on the rail and my foot on the step. The checker asked my name and then said “you’re up next”…I won, LOL.

The trophy weighs about 30 lbs. and has a nice plate on it saying “Outstanding Elegance Award”. I was thanking Blackie for having us here when he in turn said “thanks for the kind words (about his son), thanks for coming and very glad to meet you two”. Made my day!!!
It was also neat to have all our friends clap, whistle and hoot as I descended the stage, what a great bunch, makes the whole trip worthwhile. There were 3 more 7’ monsters awarded, but I only saw the one given to the chap from Australia who has the ‘Mercules’.

Blackie said a few more words of thanks and wished us all a safe trip home…he truly is a ‘Class Act’ in my book. One of the largest displays was being dismantled as the awards were being given out which cleared the way for the single vehicles to begin exiting. It always amazes me how quickly the show empties out and with all the trailered vehicles to be loaded, it went quite smoothly. Since we were in the middle of the arena, we piled up our display, rolled up the carpet and I went to retrieve our trailer. A center lane adjacent to the rear of the building was open and right next to the back lane so I got parked. One of the large dollies was available and it handled all our display in one trip. My new interior trailer lights made strapping our piping etc. an easy task and next we drove the car out and into the trailer in a wink. We were back at the hotel by 9pm, a record time for us old fogeys!!! We snacked on the leftovers we’d accumulated, watched a movie and hit the sack.

On Monday morning, we ate our last breakfast courtesy of the hotel, said our goodbyes to all the new friends we’d met then Ray with friend Butch Steele on board, led the way to Hwy. 99 and we headed north.
Traffic was fairly light as we tooled through Sacramento and onto the I-5. Butch mentioned a wrecking yard he’d like to stop at in Williams, so we pulled of the highway, went 3 blocks west, a few south and we were at ‘Big M Dismantling’. After parking along their road, we walked into a huge collection of early ’50 and ‘60s cars in various states of condition. Most were complete, big models like 2 and 4 door hardtops, wagons and panels. There were hundreds of all models of Chrylers, Dodges, Plymouths, lots of big Buicks and Caddies, over 25 Edsels, the rest of the Fords and Mercs were mostly the biggest of their line.

The exception was about 20 Falcons and Comets with one ’39 Ford panel. One of the staff met us and encouraged us to wander around and tell him how many we wanted to take home!!! We noted that a lot of them were savable and that any Chrysler that held a hemi had been stripped and we surmised they were stored in one of the many barns on the premises. The yard owner is well aware of the going prices of his horde and we were told they ship cars all over the state’s, he’s also the largest supplier of Edsel’s in North America. I took a lot of photos and after an hour and a half we headed up the highway again. At a fuel stop, we ate at the Subway next door and with one more rest stop, said our goodbyes. We cruised straight home in good weather till we hit the Oregon border where we ran into a light rain, welcome to Oregon eh?

To sum up, we were honored to be asked to come to the Fresno show by Blackie, we again met a host of other owners, viewers, plus very helpful show staff, brought home the biggest trophy for our collection, picked up some unique items as reminders of the event, had a great trip both there and back and best of all…met and befriended one of the icons of car show promoters. All we can say is if you ever get an opportunity to attend a Blackie Gejeian Invitational, it will be an experience you’ll never forget.

By Bunny & Charlotte Jeboult