April | 2015 | Michael S. Moore

I was barely back a day but just in time Sunday for the annual car show downtown benefiting the Benicia High School Band…yet more bright and shiny things. Robert Irwin deemed hot rods ‘folk art’, and there’s surely truth in that, but the folk have, over the years, embodied many increasingly sophisticated iterations of style…

Saturday I spotted a recon vehicle down by the jetty, but Sunday morning on H Street gave no indication of what was in store out the back gate and beyond the everpresent ’45…

Morning’s walk turned up a beater wagon by Lucca and Dean’s ’53 offered for sale outside the Capitol…heading down First the plot, or the folk art, thickened, with some classic variations of the long and the low in evidence…

But nothing like the main event, from D Street on;

Resto and ratrod forties Dodge pickups…

Period correct historical ’36 flathead Ford coupe from V-town…

Hysterical pre-war Hudson [12″ chop!] with ghost eagle paint job…then some GM products;

A really cool little ’53 Ford Customline, looking like it came from the showroom but just slightly lowered; definitely one of my favorites out there with the view…

Neo-classicism, with bucks…

Going for baroque;

…or minimalism

…and of course flames of various descriptions

… when I was in Junior High some guys down Verdugo had a bunch of ’40 Fords in black primer behind their fence, one a fastback sedan, but not as clean or low as this;