{"id":837,"date":"2012-07-21T14:23:49","date_gmt":"2012-07-21T22:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/?p=837"},"modified":"2012-07-27T17:12:03","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T01:12:03","slug":"woodies-on-the-wharf-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/?p=837","title":{"rendered":"Woodies on the Wharf 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The end of June saw the 18th<\/sup> annual running of Woodies on the Wharf<\/em>. Much more than a car show, this year\u2019s event featured cars like a \u201949 Mercury sporting an aluminum-blocked, Ardun-equipped flathead, a legendary surfboard builder shaping a balsa blank with an antique drawknife, and characters like a good ol\u2019 boy named Cotton who drove all the way from Georgia with a trunk full of peach-flavored white lightning. We had perfect weather, bitchen little waves for the Friday Surf-Out, killer barbecue at Saturday\u2019s tailgate dinner, and no one ran out of gas or ice all weekend.<\/p>\n

A 158 woodies made this year\u2019s gathering and while we were kept pretty busy, we had a chance to shoot a few photos:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> This \u201937 Dodge is both a rare bird and<\/em> a good-looking car. You\u2019ll have to excuse the glare. It was bright and sunny from daybreak. Throughout the previous week meteorologists had been predicting winter-like weather for the event. Wow, did they blow it. While friends in the local mountains reported umbrella-worthy drizzle, on the wharf we were in flip flops and T-shirts by 7:00 a.m.
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This tan \u201937 was a full phantom-build. Here\u2019s stock-bodied \u201937 for comparison:
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Santa Cruz Woodies<\/em>, a chapter of the National Woodie Club, does a worthy job living up to our town\u2019s \u201cKeep It Weird\u201d vibe. The chapter doesn\u2019t have a president, it has a queen. Here she is being escorted onto the wharf in Gary Meadors\u2019 Chrysler Town & Country.
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Gary\u2019s Luxury Liner gets plenty of grunt from its Mopar V-10.
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Another car worthy of note was Richard Munz\u2019 Ardun-powered \u201949 Mercury. It deservedly drove off with the Woodie Owners\u2019 Choice<\/em> award.
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While my lovely wife and I are among the handful of couples that founded the Santa Cruz Woodies, the original Club Kahuna<\/em> is Don Iglesias. Don drives a bitchen \u201949 Merc woodie with a hot flathead. He\u2019s also a lifelong waterman and, at the Friday Surf-Out, knew how to milk the 38th<\/sup> Street ankle-snappers for all they were worth:
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The waves were clean and really fun. Here\u2019s another old car guy\/gremmie, setting up for the inside section. A lot of local dudes are both surfers and<\/em> hot rodders. Could their wives have done any worse?
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Builders often target Woodies on the Wharf<\/em> for finishing and debuting their cars. Local \u201cFarmer Joe\u201d Esperanca rolled out his recently-completed red Mercury.
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Big cars are bitchen and we\u2019re seeing more and more of these once-scorned woodies being restored and hot-rodded. Early Dodges look right at home with a load of kids and surfboards. The three-door Cadillac was originally built to transport guests from the train terminal in San Diego to the Hotel Del Coronado<\/em> on Coronado Island. This luxurious depot hack features an ostrich hide interior and modern Cadillac motivation.
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The owner of this \u201949 Chevy, the last of the wood-bodied Chevy wagons, slipped a modern driveline and suspension under a comfortably-worn, decades-old restored body and wood. It motored down from the Pacific Northwest and right into my heart. It was definitely one of my favorites.
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Woodie and surfboard builder George Benson\u2019s Mercury was topped with a rack-full of balsa. The sign in the windshield read \u201cSurfboard for sale. Some assembly required.\u201d Daughter Kristie\u2019s Mercury is parked next door.
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Santa Cruz Woodies member and legendary board builder Floyd Smith of Gordon & Smith Surfboards<\/em> demonstrated his craft in what had to be the world\u2019s most picturesque shaping room.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The end of June saw the 18th annual running of Woodies on the Wharf. Much more than a car show, this year\u2019s event featured cars like a \u201949 Mercury sporting an aluminum-blocked, Ardun-equipped flathead, a legendary surfboard builder shaping a balsa blank with an antique drawknife, and characters like a good ol\u2019 boy named Cotton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shopnews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1I3Pf-dv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seabrighthotrods.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}