Join us for a quick tour of the colorful 1963 Winternationals car show, a major event on the classic rod & custom scene.

In the early years of the National Hot Rod Association, the sanctioning body often  sponsored indoor rod-and-custom car shows in tandem with ts two big national drag racing events, the U.S. Nationals and the Winternationals. This period newsreel, produced for P.A. Sturtevant, showcases the 1963 Winternationals show held at the old Great Western Exhibit Center in Los Angeles. If you’re into the classic age of rods and customs, you’ll see a number of familiar machines here, including:

+   Bill Cushenberry’s Sillhouette, a free-form custom rod that was featured in a 1965 beach movie and became an AMT model kit.

+   The famed Lil’ Coffin, a ’32 Ford Tudor radically customized by Dave Stuckey of Wichita with a cantilever roof. It too became a popular model kit by Monogram.

+   Gene Winfield’s Solar Scene, originally a 1950 Mercury. Identified by its vertical quad headlamps and dramatically sculpted wheel openings, it was featured in both Hot Rod and Rod & Custom.  

+   The 1963 Pontiac X-400, a General Motors show car based on a  Bonneville convertible that previewed a number of styling elements of later Pontiac production cars.

+   The Dodge Flitewing, a Chrysler styling exercise with split-Gullwing doors built by Ghia in Italy. See our feature on the Flitewing here. 

. . .and more. See how many you can spot. The indoor rod and custom shows were a major part of the automotive enthusiast scene in the 1960s. According to this newsreel more than 70,000 people attended the Winternationals show, and here we get to join them for a few moments. Video below.