Hod rod enthusiasts crown “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster”

Some six decades have unspooled since Tom Wolfe first ran around southern California watching teens hammer junk cars into kandy-kolored, tangerine-flaked streamline babies. Today, those teens still gather every year to gawk, judge and award the title of America's Most Beautiful Roadster — the most prestigious prize a hot-rod builder can win — and wonder whether there's another generation of babies to come.

Launched in 1950, the AMBR award functions as a kind of mini-concours inside the larger Grand National Roadster Show, where more than 500 vehicles gathered last weekend in Pomona, Calif. Open by invitation only, AMBR contestants can only come from vehicles built in 1937 or before, and they have to be making their first appearance at a public show.

And just as the hot rod scene has aged and gone commercial over the years, so has AMBR, with some competitions dominated by high-dollar builds well beyond what most home hobbyists could hope to accomplish. This year, the homebuilt crowd took over; most owners displaying their cars had overseen every bolt and flange.

The typical contestant in the AMBR competition takes three to four years in building their machine. For many, that's barely enough time to get it right; Wes Rydell was still working on his 1935 Chevy Phaeton back in North Dakota a week before the event. But that only accounts for assembly time; understanding what makes a hot rod roll among the best in the nation takes decades more.

Take Paul Gommi's car, a black-on-black 1932 Ford Phaeton. Most AMBR finalists put up a handpainted sign with some pinstriping to thank their contributors and give a little information on their build. Gommi, a retired Chrysler engineer and ad man, brought a dozen tall posterboards covered in text that he laid around the car's display like the tablets of the law. And he needed them, because building the phaeton involved machinery from a score of different cars — a Packard scoop, a Pierce-Arrow headlamp — all made no later than 1951. The 21-pin Ford V-8 has a supercharger that Gommi lent a friend 40 years ago.